Illegal Mining Leak Case: Supreme Court dismisses Plea seeking Income Tax Probe against Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren [Read Judgment]

In a major relief for Jharkhand Chief minister Hemant Soren, the Supreme Court has set aside the Jharkhand high court’s orders holding Public Interest Litigations (PILs) seeking a probe against Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader as maintainable and decided to proceed with the income tax investigation.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia dismissed the PIL in the case involving the alleged lease and investment in a shell company made by close aides of Jharkhand CM.

A division bench of the Apex Court said the petitioner, Shiv Shankar Sharma, had failed to disclose that a “similar petition” was filed before the HC in 2013, which was dismissed by both the HC as well as the SC.

The petitioner filed two PILs before the Court. In his first PIL, Sharma sought a probe by the Income Tax department to look into the money transferred by the Soren family in the name of private respondents through shell companies and investigate the source of income of private respondents and financial crime committed by Hemant Soren.

The second petition sought a direction to prosecute the Chief Minister, who is also the Minister in the Department of Mines. The reason is that he has misused his office in getting a mining lease in his own name.

Petitioner alleged that one of the respondents who is the present Chief Minister of Jharkhand has amassed huge wealth by corrupt means by abusing his position as a Chief Minister and has invested this money in about 32 companies of which description has been given.

“The respondent or his relatives are not the Directors of the Companies. But then the petitioner states that he has information that he has been siphoning off this money and investing it in these shell companies through one Ravi Kejriwal who is allegedly a close associate of the Chief Minister. The allegations of the respondent of money laundering through shell companies has not been supplemented by any kind of evidence, whatsoever. The names of persons who are allegedly responsible for the operation of these companies have been mentioned, but without producing any concrete evidence, it has been stated that these persons are connected/close aides or related to the Chief Minister. Further, none of the companies have been made a party to the present PILs, before the Jharkhand High Court. Thus, an order is sought from the High Court to direct the Enforcement Directorate to investigate these so called “shell companies” without even making the companies a party in the writ proceedings. It is also an admitted fact that in relation to present two PILs, no FIR or complaint has been filed with the police or any authority agitating the grievances and these petitions have been filed before the High Court, without availing the statutory remedies,” the Apex Court said.

To Read the full text of the Judgment CLICK HERE

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