SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Aug. 3: All eyes in Jharkhand are set on the Supreme Court as well as the Election Commission tomorrow.
For, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Jharkhand Government’s petition challenging the Jharkhand High Court order on maintainability of the two PILs filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma. The first PIL seeks probe into the shell companies linked to Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his family members and associates while the second one is related to the mining lease awarded in the name of Hemant Soren. The case has been listed before a three-judge bench comprising Justices UU Lalit, Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
According to a legal expert, besides the arguments over the maintainability, the hearing will be crucial as two major developments have taken place since the case was last listed in the Apex Court on July 28.
First, lawyer Rajiv Kumar, who has been fighting the case on behalf of Sharma, has been arrested by the Kolkata police on the charges of extortion of Rs 50 lakh from a businessman Amit Agrawal. The companies linked to Amit have been listed among the shell firms by Sharma, which, he has urged, are required to be probed.
The Jharkhand High Court, during the last hearing on July 29 has fixed August 26 for the next hearing after the ED sought four weeks’ time on the grounds of Covid infection of Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta.
The second development is related to the arrest of the three Congress MLAs by the Kolkata police with around Rs 50 lakh cash. They have been accused of the BJP game plan to topple the Hemant Soren Government.
The Bengal government has handed over the case to the CID, which has sprung into action and begun the probe into it. Incidentally, the Bengal police today faced resistance from the Delhi police when the former reached the national capital with a court warrant to search and raid the premises of Siddhartha Majumdar, close to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Majumdar’s name cropped up during interrogation of the three Jharkhand Congress MLAs, who stood suspended by the leadership.
In the meantime, the Election Commission is also scheduled to hear a petition against Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who has been accused of violating the office of profit rules by awarding a mining lease in his own name. Soren also happens to be the Mines minister in Jharkhand.
The EC, which had been initially in a fast-paced mode in order to decide the case after Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais referred it to a petition filed by the BJP, for its opinion, later became liberal in granting time sought by both Soren as well as the BJP. The case will be heard at 3 pm and so far no party has sought time from the EC, said Kumar Harsh, a lawyer.
