VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, July 6: The petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma has claimed that the family of chief minister Hemant Soren was engaged in the illegal mining in Jharkhand along with Maharashtra-based Suresh Nagre.
Shiv Shankar Sharma maintained this in the supplementary affidavit filed before the Jharkhand High court ahead of the hearing of the PIL 4290/2021 related to allegations against Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his family members.
He claimed that Suresh Nagre is also closely associated with MLA Basant Soren. The petitioner referred to an FIR pending against Nagre at the Economic Offence Wing of Delhi police which had been lodged in 2018. Complainant Roop Madan alleged Nagre of cheating Rs 39.29 Crore to do sands business in Jharkhand. The petitioner has claimed Nagre is the business partner of Basant Soren and Nagre owing to his proximity with Basant Soren and Hemant Soren controlled sands mining in Jharkhand.
The petitioner said mines were allocated to people close to them. He produced a mining lease document pertaining to one Rita Mishra who is wife of Pankaj Kumar Mishra. He is the MLA representative of the chief minister. The said stone mine was allocated to her in the year 2021.
The petitioner alleged the Hemant Soren government is paying “Rs. 22 Lakh as fee to the Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal from tax payers’ money for protecting corruption of the Chief Minister and one another Senior Counsel Mr. Mukul Rohatgi has appeared on behalf of state government, before the Supreme Court, and he regularly appears before Jharkhand High court from the side Hemant Soren.”
He said that the state is liable to pay Rs 1.54 Crore to Kapil Sibal who so far has appeared for seven times before the Jharkhand High Court and the Supreme Court. He said that it was a case of conflict of interest of the State vis-a-vis Hemant Soren, the Chief Minister.
The petitioner has strongly rebutted the allegation of perjury levelled against him by the state government. Referring to one such case of M/s Neelam Construction the state government claimed the petitioner made a false allegation that the said company was given the contract. The State claimed that the contract was withdrawn as the company failed to prove its credential.
The petitioner has now claimed that the contract was withdrawn only after he filed a supplementary affidavit where he mentioned how the said company was given contract by JSBCCL by violating law. The tender committee even did not check documents of the company at the tender admission stage.