RANCHI: The Jharkhand government has again filed Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court challenging the order passed by Jharkhand HC on the maintainability of a PIL seeking probe against CM Hemant Soren.
Jharkhand High Court on June 3 had given its approval for the hearing on the PIL seeking probe against Soren for the alleged irregularities in the grant of mining leases and also on transactions of some shell companies purportedly operated by his family and associates.
According to the PIL filed by an RTI activist Shiv Shankar Sharma, CM Soren and his brother Basant Soren invested black money through businessmen Ravi Kejriwal, Ramesh Kejriwal, Amit Agrawal and several others in 28 small companies to get them converted into white money. Sharma in his PIL also demanded probe by the CBI and ED into the shell companies which are being run in other states including Bihar and West Bengal.
Advocate General Rajeev Ranjan, while hearing on the matter at Jharkhand High Court on Friday, informed the division bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice SN Prasad that the state government has moved to the Supreme Court against the order passed by it on June 3 in which the maintainability petition filed by the state was rejected. Therefore, the hearing may be deferred till any direction is passed by the Supreme Court.
The court, however, categorically said that the hearing cannot be stayed on the ground as earlier the
matter had gone before the Supreme Court and it had already passed an order in the matter.