V NARADA
Ranchi, March 18: The Jharkhand High Court has directed Sahibganj SP Anuranjan Kispotta to file a personal affidavit in a SC, ST Prevention of Atrocities case which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also investigating.
A single bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi has directed the SP to file the reply in three weeks as the petitioner Ramesh Paswan raised objections over the manner in which the police investigated his complaint against Pankaj Mishra.
Pankaj Mishra is the MLA representative of Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren. The ED arrested him in July last year and charge-sheeted him in Rs 1000 Crore money laundering case.
The court has directed the SP to explain how a charge-sheet can be filed in absence of any statement of the informant and other witnesses.
Ramesh Paswan is an employee of Jai Bajrangwali Stone Works. He alleged that one day Pankaj Mishra and his associates came to the mining site. They abused him and threatened not to allow the operation of the stone crusher unit if his owner didn’t give protection money.
The Sahibganj police termed this case as false and started a criminal proceeding against Ramesh Paswan.
He filed a writ petition before the Jharkhand High Court. He stated that the police in an inappropriate way submitted a charge-sheet. He said that Pankaj Mishra is politically an influential person hence the police have not investigated the case in its right direction. He claimed that the police even did not record his statement and submitted the charge-sheet. He stated that he along with other persons went to record their statements, but their statements were not recorded by the Investigating Officer.