VIJAY
Ranchi, March 3: DSP Pramod Mishra got a relief from Jharkhand High Court after the court granted him protection against his probable arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). But the court also directed him to appear before the ED for his questioning.
The order was passed by the court of Justice Shree Chandrasekhar. A writ petition was filed before Jharkhand High Court questioning the authority of the ED to examine investigation done by the state police and the concerned investigating officer.
Notably, the ED on February 28 sent him a third summons and directed him to appear for questioning on March 6. The ED wants to question him about the 2020 Barharwa toll plaza auction case where the FIR was lodged by businessman Shambhu Nandan Kumar at Barharwa police station in Sahibganj. He had alleged state minister Alamgir Alam and Pankaj Mishra (MLA representative of Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren) for threatening and assaulting him as he refused their order not to participate in the tender.
Pramod Mishra supervised this case and gave a clean chit to Pankaj Mishra and Alamgir Alam within 24 hours after the FIR was lodged. He did not examine forensic evidence as Pankaj Mishra used the mobile phone of the minister to threaten the complainant. Even the Jharkhand High Court had made a strong observation.
The Barharwa case is the basis of the illegal stone mining investigation of the ED in which the agency arrested Pankaj Mishra as the kingpin of the scam. The ED suspects that Pramod Mishra as the DSP had given protection to the illegal stone mining. An audio of a police official with a private person had surfaced where the said official was talking about the role of Pramod Mishra. The ED wants to question him about this also.
When the ED sent him a notice last year he did not turn-up. On getting second notice, the
The Jharkhand government filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court to question the authority of the ED to question police officials in the Barharwa toll tender case. But the bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice M. M. Sundresh refused to hear that criminal writ petition 533/2022. The Supreme Court asked the state government to approach the Jharkhand High Court to seek the remedy instead of approaching the Supreme Court.
The ED earlier questioned Jharkhand police ASI Sarfuddin Khan who was the investigating officer and the Barharwa DSP Pramod Mishra.
