Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has got a big relief from the Supreme Court. The PIL relating to allegations of investment in shell companies and wrongful mining leases by the Chief Minister and his close associates has been considered untenable by the Supreme Court. This PIL was filed in the Jharkhand High Court by a person named Shivshankar Sharma, questioning the maintainability of which Chief Minister Soren and the Jharkhand government had filed an SLP (Special Leave Petition) in the Supreme Court.
Soren had sought a stay on the hearing of the PIL related to this matter in the Jharkhand High Court. After hearing on this petition in the month of August, the Supreme Court had reserved its decision. After the decision of the court, CM Soren wrote by tweeting.
What happened in court? A bench of Supreme Court Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia on Monday ruled that the PIL filed by a person named Shivshankar Sharma in the High Court is not maintainable. Earlier, the Jharkhand High Court had considered this petition to be maintainable.
What was said by the state government? During the hearing in the Supreme Court on the appeal of the state government and Hemant Soren, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, had questioned the maintainability of the PIL filed in the High Court, he had said that Shiv Shankar Sharma The purpose of both the PILs filed by accusing CM Hemant Soren and his close associates is to spread fear. The father of the petitioner has an old enmity with the Soren family. The Supreme Court was also informed that the petitioner’s advocate Rajiv Kumar has been arrested by the Kolkata Police with an amount of Rs 50 lakh of extortion.
The counsel for the ED, who became the respondent in this case, had also said that there are sufficient facts in the matter of investment in shell companies and allocation of mining leases, on the basis of which the argument on the petition should be continued. The Supreme Court, while rejecting the ED’s argument, said that if the ED has evidence of money laundering in the case of alleged investment in shell companies and allocation of mining leases, then it can investigate it itself. Why does she want a court order to investigate under the guise of a PIL filed by a person?