VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, June 1: The Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday asked Mukul Rohtagi and Kapil Sibal not to tell the story of ‘Wolf and Lamb’ to the court as they questioned the motives of petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma who filed a PIL accusing the chief minister Hemant Soren and his associates for parking their unaccounted money in the shell companies.
Mukul Rohtagi and Kapil Sibal appeared on behalf of the Chief Minister and Jharkhand government respectively in the PIL 4090/2021 concerning the shell companies. The double bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Sujit Narayan Prasad heard the arguments related to the maintainability of the PIL.
They contended that Shiv Shankar Sharma is biased and he is carrying a family feud against Hemant Soren. They said that his father Gautam Sharma was a party of the case against Shibu Soren (father of Hemant Soren) in the Shashinath Jha murder case. They alleged that Gautam Sharma had made false statements against Shibu Soren as the CBI witness in that case in which he was finally exonerated by the upper court. They said that the petitioner is ill-motivated.
“Don’t tell us the story of ‘Wolf and Lamb’ there is a difference between being the party of a case and being a witness of a case. Shibu Soeren is not a party to the PIL being heard here,” the Chief Justice observed.
Senior Jharkhand High Court lawyer Rajiv Kumar who appeared on behalf of the petitioner opposed the contention of Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohtagi. He said that the petitioner is an independent entity and he is not liable if his father was the witness of the CBI against Shibu Soren.
“This can’t be the ground to question the credibility of the petitioner. Even my father was the CBI witness in the fodder scam case,’ said Rajiv Kumar.
