VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Aug 17: Jharkhand High Court advocate Rajiv Kumar is unlikely to be produced before the special PMLA court in Ranchi on Thursday. He is lodged at Alipur jail on the charge of extortion.
It is due to the reason that the Alipur jail authority refused to entertain the request of the Birsa Munda Central Jail authorities who requested their Alipur Jail counterparts to hand over Rajiv Kumar to them for his production before the special PMLA court scheduled on August 18. The Alipur jail said that unless they provide the certified copy of the production order of Ranchi PMLA court, Rajiv Kumar can’t be released. The Alipur jail authorities further said that Rajiv Kumar was lodged at this jail in judicial custody following the order of the court of the special judge of Kolkata.
A Kolkata-based advocate who is aware of the development stated that the request of Birsa Munda Jail was turned down by the special judge Kumkum Sinha. “I came to know that special jail messengers submitted an application and requested the Kolkata court to allow them to take Rajiv Kumar with them so that he is produced before the court. But they did not submit any valid document namely the production order issued by the PMLA court in Ranchi,” said the advocate.
Kolkata police arrested Rajiv Kumar on July 31 on the charge of extorting money from businessman Amit Agrawal for giving him relief in a PIL 4290/21 filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma at Jharkhand High Court and Rajiv Kumar was pleading this case. Police said that he was trapped along with the cash which he had extorted from Amit Agrawal in the name of safeguarding him in a PIL 4290/21 against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
On August 10, the ED took over the investigation of this case and an ECIR was lodged at the Ranchi zonal office of the agency. The ED prayed the PMLA court to issue a production order for Rajiv Kumar.
Notably, in this case, the Kolkata police even summoned the deputy director of the Odisha zonal office of the ED Subodh Kumar, and asked him to record his statement. Subodh Kumar was earlier posted as deputy director at the Ranchi zonal office of the agency. The Kolkata police summoned him on the basis of some of his alleged WhatsApp conversations with Rajiv Kumar. The allegation against Rajiv Kumar is that he along with petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma files PILs in order to extort money from businessmen and companies.
The petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma claimed that the Chief Minister, his family members, and associates indulged in corruption and they laundered their unaccounted money through various shell companies. Amit Agrawal is not the respondent of this PIL but his company Aurora Studio Pvt. Ltd was named in the PIL as a suspected shell company. Petitioner claimed that Amit Agrawal is closely associated with the Chief Minister. However, as a respondent, Hemant Soren vehemently denied charges against him. Rajiv Kumar is the advocate of the petitioner.
In a complaint lodged before the Bengal police, Amit Agrawal said that in May he came to know through media and other sources that allegations have been made against his companies being involved in money laundering. He alleged Rajiv Kumar and Shiv Shankar Sharma are hands in glove in filing such PIL against different businessmen and their companies in lieu of huge amounts of money with assurance to settle the issue by managing Justices, court officers and other government agencies.
