Ranchi, December 27:The Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday dismissed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed against Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his relatives in an illegal mining case.
The PIL was filed by RTI activist and advocate Sunil Mahato, who in his PIL, alleged that Hemant Soren misused his office and power by allocating mining leases to himself and his relatives. He also alleged Soren of disproportionate assets through unknown sources of income.
During the hearing, the state government’s Advocate General Rajeev Ranjan and CM Hemant Soren’s advocate Piyush Chitresh argued that the Supreme Court had previously set aside a similar case involving Shiv Shankar Sharma and others.
To this, Mahato’s lawyer argued that this case is distinct from the one that was dismissed concerning Shiv Shankar Sharma. While Sharma’s petition focused solely on mining lease allocation in the name of Hemant Soren, this petition raises issues related to allocating land in the industrial area to his wife and sister-in-law.
As per Mahato’s now-rejected PIL, Hemant Soren, as minister of the mines department, not only allocated a mining lease for himself in Anagada near Ranchi but also allocated leases for the firms of his wife Kalpana Murmu and sister-in-law Sarla Murmu.
After hearing both sides, a High Court bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Mishra and Justice Anand Sen dismissed the petition. The bench held that the petition was the repetition of an older PIL.
“There is nothing new in this PIL,” the court said.
The older matter against Soren also pertained to the allotment of the mining lease in his favour in Jharkhand.
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