SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, June 8: The Jharkhand High Court, in its 79-page judgment uploaded today on its website, has convincingly rejected the arguments made by two of the best legal brains in the country-Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi, questioning the maintainability of the two PILs filed against Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his associates.
A Division bench comprising Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad said that the State government raised objection to the maintainability of the PILs-one related to the mining lease to the CM and another linked to shell companies where ill-gotten money was invested—on five counts.
The court had delivered the judgement on June 3 after hearing on the maintainability of the PILs in pursuance of the Supreme Court order.
First, they argued the PILs have not been filed in accordance with the rules framed by the Jharkhand High Court. Second, petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma has not furnished the credentials, as required under Jharkhand High Court Rules. Third, the writ petitions have been filed with mala fide intention since the father of the writ petitioner was the witness in a criminal case instituted against the father of the CM, Shibu Soren, in which he was convicted by the trial court. Fourth, the writ petitioner has directly rushed to the high court without exhausting the remedy available under the Code of Criminal Procedure. And last, since the lease has been surrendered already by the Chief Minister, there is no occasion for the continuation of this proceeding.
Rejecting the objections point-by-point, the Court observed that even if there are criteria under rule 4 or 5 of the Jharkhand High Court Rules, 2010, and the same has not strictly been followed but if there is prima facie material available indicating genuine public interest, the writ petitions should not and cannot be thrown away. “The petitioner can be ousted but not genuine issues raising the public cause. Doing that will frustrate the cause of justice,” the court observed.
The court further observed that “no man should suffer a wrong by the technical procedure of irregularities. Rules or procedures are the handmaids of justice and not the mistress of justice.”
The bench observed that there is no dispute about the legal proposition that the Public Interest Litigation is to be entertained with utmost care and circumspection and is required to be decided by the Court of the law taking into consideration the factual aspects pertaining to the nature of allegation as to whether same is causing any harm to the social justice or there is the involvement of public interest at large.
The Court said that the allegation of mala fide merely because the father of the writ petitioner was a witness in a criminal case in which he was convicted is not sustainable.
“Herein, the allegation as per the pleadings available on record is serious in nature, i.e. investment of ill-gotten money through various sources, which is allowed to be laundered at the cost of society jeopardizing the interest of the people at large,” the court said.
The bench further observed that the allegation of obtaining a mining lease by the Chief Minister and Minister-in-Charge of Mining Department has been admitted by him in his counter-affidavit. “It is a different thing that he may have now surrendered the lease. Such being the admitted position, the mala fide point or the issue of biased approach by the writ petitioner would not be acceptable at all. The allegation cannot be said to be a farce. What ultimately would be the fate of the writ petition lies in the womb of morrow but how such a petition could be thrown away at the threshold?,” the court commented.
The court further said that the issue of approaching the high court without exhausting the remedy available under Section 154, 154(3) and 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not available in the facts and circumstances of the present case.
“The reason is that in this case direction has been sought for investigation of siphoning of public money through an independent agency, like CBI, ED and Income Tax Department and such orders cannot be passed under the aforesaid provisions,” the court said and added that the remedy available under the Code of Criminal Procedure is not worth to be considered.
