VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, June 17: A single bench of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi of Jharkhand High Court on Friday ordered Home Secretary of Jharkhand Rajiv Arun Ekka to physically appear before the court on July 8 in the matter pertaining to the Dhenga firing case in Hazaribagh where a media person was shot by the police and also made him an accused.
The court was unhappy with the state government avoiding the hearing of this matter for the past many months and seeking deferment of the hearing on one or other grounds. The petitioner, in this case, is Mantu Soni who was represented by his lawyer Abhishek Krishna Gupta. The court passed this order while hearing his writ petition 127/2021.
Priya Shrestha appeared on the behalf of the state and she pleaded for more time on the ground that she received the case file last night only and she would require time to go through it. The court on this issued an order for the physical presence of the state home secretary.
“The state has been running away from facing the court in this matter. The state is not assisting the court in this case hence the court was not able to reach any conclusion. In the light of the above, the court passed the order for the physical appearance of the home secretary,” said the lawyer.
As many as six people were injured during the farmers’ agitation at Dhenga under Barkagaon police station of Hazaribagh district on August 14, 2015. The agitation was called against the Pakri Barwadih coal mining project of the NTPC.
The petitioner alleged that he was clicking photographs when the police nabbed and shot him. He was taken to the Sadar police station and the police put undue pressure on him to give a favourable statement. He was made an accused in the FIR no. 167/15 and sent to jail. But neither in the FIR nor the police diary or the charge sheet did the police disclose about his bullet injuries.
Later on, Mantu Soni filed a court complaint against the police for grievously hurting him. The FIR 214/16 was lodged on the instruction of the court at Barkagaon police station. But the police did not put on record evidence produced by Mantu Soni and closed his complaint as false. The police even ignored the injury report of Mantu Soni prepared by the Sadar hospital.
Even the matter of the police firing was raised before the assembly and the government in its reply denied that anybody was injured in the police firing. Years after the incident, the police accepted that people were injured in the firing.
