VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, June 1: If the Jharkhand government — irrespective of who rules Raghubar Das or Hemant Soren —made a habit to question the maintainability of a PIL the answer lies in the order issued by the then government headed by Raghubar Das in 2017.
On the advice of the then Advocate General Ajit Kumar, the Raghubar Das government in 2017 passed a direction of secretaries of all departments to ensure that they ensure PIL against the state is dismissed. Rajbala Verma was the Chief Secretary.
The matter came to light during the hearing of a PIL 4090/2021 on Wednesday concerning the allegation against Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his associates for parking their unaccounted money in different shell companies.
Rajiv Kumar appearing on behalf of the petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma said that the Jharkhand government even issued an order to oppose any PIL even filed with a good cause and there is no wonder if the state government is opposing this PIL also.
Chief Justice Doctor Ravi Ranjan heading the double bench directed him to submit the documentary evidence to the court as well as the Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan.
“This is a serious matter,” said the court. When advocate general Rajiv Ranjan said that the state government never intended to dispute any PIL through an interlocutory petition the court said they can read and understand documents of the order written in Hindi and English.
Ajit Kumar was the Advocate General of Jharkhand when he gave the suggestion to the state government to file an interlocutory petition for the rejection of the PILs. This correspondent possesses a relevant letter issued by the office of the Advocate General of Jharkhand (dated 6 September 2017) addressed to the then chief minister Raghubar Das.
In the light of the opinion tendered by the Advocate General, the then Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma directed secretaries of all departments to ensure that they file interlocutory petition for the dismissal of PIL against the government and the department.
“As you are aware that nowadays in every administrative or policy matter of the State Government or like PlLs are being filed by scrupulous persons who are in the habit of filing PIL just to put pressure upon the State Government or its officials. In view of large numbers of such PILs being filed against the State Government or the concerned department who is a party in a particular PIL must file an application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Order 7 Rule 10 & 11 and order 14 Rule 2 of the code of Civil Procedure challenging the maintainability of the PILs at the stage of Admission” itself,” the letter reads.
Ajit Kumar has referred to an example of WP. No. 3949/2015 which was filed by Durga Munda. That PIL “as if for directions upon the State Government for the execution of certain communications made by the Election Commission of India to the State Government in which matter an Election Petition is already pending before the Hon’ble High Court in which a quasi-criminal trial has to take place.
The State Government also has to consider the question and if necessary it needs to refer to the Election Commission of India as to whether it had knowledge of the pending election petition in the matter.
If some observations are made by the Hon’ble High Court in the PIL, the same is going to prejudice the parties in the Election Petition trial.
In view of the above, I request your good self that an instruction may be issued to the concerned or the Chief Secretary of the State Government to issue an instruction to all the concerned Departments that whenever a copy of PIL of the above nature is informed or served upon them, immediate steps be taken for filing of petition under Order 73 Rule 10 and 11 for rejection of the petition and/or for deciding the matter of maintainability of a PIL as a preliminary issue. This shall be helpful and may check filing of unnecessary PIL against the State Government before the Hon’ble High Court,” the letter states.
