VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Nov 7: Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren got relief from the Supreme Court in the twin PILs against him as the division bench of Chief Justice UU Lalit, Justice Shripathi Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia stated that both the PILs were not maintainable. The Supreme Court delivered judgment today and the judgment was authored by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia.
These PILs 4290/21 and 727/22 are related to allegations of money laundering through shell companies and the Chief Minister availing stone mining lease in his name, respectively. The petitioner had demanded a CBI inquiry into this matter.
Notably, in August the division bench headed by Justice U.U. Lalit had stayed the proceedings of both PILs at the Jharkhand High Court and further reserved the order. The Supreme Court passed the order while hearing petitions from Hemant Soren and the Jharkhand government where they had challenged the maintainability order passed by the division bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Sujit Narayan Prasad of Jharkhand High Court.
The matter was by the Chief Justice U.U. Lalit as tomorrow is his last working day as Chief Justice; hence, it was required for him to pass the order in all such cases heard by him in the past and the order was reserved.
Both PILs were originally filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma and the case was argued by Jharkhand High Court advocate Rajiv Kumar. In the meantime, the advocate was arrested in Kolkata along with Rs 50 Lakh cash. It was alleged that the cash seized from his possession, he had extorted from Kolkata-based businessman Amit Agrawal.
However, this will not affect the ongoing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as the agency has inched closer to Chief Minister and he has been summoned for questioning.
