VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, May 23: The petitioner, Shiv Shankar Sharma, has brought to the notice of the Jharkhand High Court the two other complaints of anomalies and illegal mining involving the then mining secretary K. Srinivasan.
Sharma who is the petitioner of PILs related to stone mining lease to chief minister Hemant Soren and shell companies has alleged the Anti-Corruption Bureau for sitting idle despite complaints lodged in writing.
“K. Srinivasan as managing director of Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation (JSMDC) constituted the tender evaluation committee. He dropped the representation of the Cabinet Co-ordination and Vigilance Department in the tender evaluation committee because he feared that his ill practices would be caught. Representation of the Vigilance in the committee is a must. One can see his May 2021 order,” senior Jharkhand lawyer Rajiv Kumar said who represents the petitioner. He said that one Matlub Alam had lodged a complaint at the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) but the ACB did not carry out any probe.
He claimed that another complaint was lodged regarding the verbal order given by K. Srinivasan to the district mining officer of Palamu, Garhwa and Latehar to stop issuing transportation permits for sand.
Asked why he sniffs foul play behind the Cabinet Co-ordination and Vigilance Department representative being dropped from the tender evaluation committee of the JSMDC, he said that it was done to hide and for the furtherance of the scam.
In 2021, the mining department headed by K. Srinivasan invited mining companies for the auction of the Ajitaburu iron ore mines in West Singhbhum district. The JSMDC as a business body of the state government headed by managing director K. Srinivasan participated in the bid. As per the rule, it was mandatory for the participant companies to furnish income tax returns of the last three financial years along with a declaration of the total net assets.
The JSMDC neither filed its statutory audited balance sheet for the last three financial years 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 with the Registrar of Companies nor filed income tax returns for the last three financial years. It participated in the auction on the basis of the last audit of the JSMDC held in 2014. The tender evaluation committee gave the go-ahead.
“Representation of the vigilance department was withdrawn for this very reason so that nobody objected. Secretary and the managing director are the same person and it is a case of a conflict of interest. The JSMDC secured the lease. By securing the iron ore mines, the ultimate objective was to benefit any private player by hiring the said private player for mining by sub-lease. That was a well-planned corruption behind the curtain of JSMDC,” said Rajiv Kumar.
Ajitaburu mines spread over 46.62 hectares, has 17.538 million tonnes of iron ore and 2.318 million tonnes of manganese reserve.
