VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Dec. 12: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has told the court that two senior officers of the state had spied upon the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials during investigation of the Barharwa toll plaza case to hamper the probe of the agency.
According to sources, the ED has named two senior officers who through regular phone calls are ssing instructions and making plans to keep the ED officials under surveillance. They are said to be one of the legal advisors as well as an officer from the Chief Minister’s Office. Sources said that the ED has attached phone transcripts of their conversations. The ED, according to sources, has claimed that the said legal advisor of the government had even sent one of his trusted persons to meet Pankaj Mishra in jail to know what else the ED questioned him during the police remand period.
The investigation of the illegal stone mining scam by the ED originated out of the investigation of the Barharwa toll plaza scam case. Sahibganj, the home borough of Chief Minister Hemant Soren is the centre of this alleged scam worth Rs. 1000 Crore.
Not only they, even Pankaj Mishra arrested by the ED in the illegal mining case, was passing instructions over the phone from the jail to instigate people to protest against his arrest. In one such phone call Pankaj Mishra gave directions to observe a bandh in Barharwa and demonstration outside of police stations.
According to sources, the report of the ED has alleged that high level attempts were made to hamper the investigation of this case by the ED. The disclosures made in the affidavit may ruffle feathers of the state government and the police.
The matter is set to be heard by the single bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi on December 22. The court in its last hearing on December 6 had directed the CBI and the ED to file counter affidavits in this case. The court had passed this order while hearing the Criminal Writ petition filed by complainant Shambhu Nandan who alleged the police for shielding the minister Alamgir Alam and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s MLA representative Pankaj Mishra.
Well-placed sources said that the ED would narrate before the court how the Sahibganj police carried out its investigation in haste with a sole objective to give clean chit to minister Pankaj Mishra. However, the ED could not record the statement of DSP Pramod Kumar Mishra who had supervised this case in a record time — within 24 hours of the FIR lodged. Despite two summonses, the DSP did not appear before citing the SLP filed by the state in the Supreme Court.
