VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Nov 5: The Supreme Court is set to pass an order on Monday regarding the maintainability of two PILs namely 4290/21 and 727/22 related to shell companies and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren availing stone mining lease in his name.
A bench headed by Justice U.U. Lalit had reserved its order on the two PILs. Notably, the Chief Justice is set to retire on November 8.
Both the PILs were filed by petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma where he alleged the chief minister, his associates and others for earning money through dubious means and laundering the same through shell companies besides securing a stone mine lease in his name while as a Chief Minister.
On August 17, the Supreme Court bench headed by U.U. Lalit had directed the Jharkhand High Court not to carry further proceedings in the PILs against the Chief Minister.
The Supreme Court had passed the order while hearing an SLP of the state government challenging the maintainability order passed by the Jharkhand High Court in the favour of the PIL 4290/21 and 727/22. The Supreme Court had concluded the hearing and reserved its order. Notably, in the meantime on July 31st Jharkhand High Court advocate Rajiv Kumar representing the petitioner before the Jharkhand High Court was arrested along with Rs 50 lakh cash in Kolkata. He was arrested on the basis of the FIR lodged by Kolkata-based businessman Amit Agrawal whose companies were mentioned in the shell company PIL.
During the hearing, the Jharkhand government said that the arrest of the advocate with cash has proved that these PILs were motivated and filed with intention to extort money from the respondents.
