Jharkhand Govt Moves Supreme Court Against HC's Order On Maintainability Of PIL Seeking CBI/ED Probe Against CM Hemant Soren

On being mentioned by the counsel for the State of Jharkhand, the vacation bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Vikram Nath on Tuesday asked the counsel to mention it before the Registrar.

"This is on behalf of State of Jharkhand, assailing the order of June 3, directing the High Court to decide on the maintainability of the PIL based on the rules. The urgency is that the High Court is proceeding with the PIL," state's counsel had submitted.

"Go to the Registrar. Justi give the details. They'll move & take orders. There are 2 benches, the CJI has to take a call," the bench said.

The State has assailed the Jharkhand High Court's order dated June 3 wherein the bench of R. Ranjan and Sujit Narayan Prasad while ruling that the PIL(s) were maintainable in their order had said, "This Court, in view of the discussions made hereinabove, is of the considered view that the issue of approaching this Court without exhausting the remedy available under Section 154, 154(3) and 156(3) of the Code or Criminal Procedure is not available in facts and circumstances of the present case reason being that in this case direction has been sought for investigation of siphoning of public money through independent agency, like CBI, ED and Income Tax Department and such orders cannot be passed under the aforesaid provisions. In view thereof the issue pertaining to approaching this Court without exhausting the remedy available under the Code of Criminal Procedure is not worth to be considered. Accordingly, rejected."

It may be noted that the Supreme Court on May 23 had directed the Jharkhand High Court to decide first the maintainability of three PILs seeking CBI/ED investigation against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in relation to grant of mining lease, allegations of MNREGA scam and transfer of money into shell companies.

A vacation bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Bela M Trivedi had passed the order on the plea preferred by the State of Jharkhand challenging the decision of the High Court to accept the documents produced by the Enforcement Directorate in sealed cover overruling the State's objections.

"We direct that the issue as to maintainability should be dealt with by the HC on the next date of listing. Based on the outcome of the objections to the maintainability of the proceedings, the HC may thereafter proceed in acc with law", the bench had directed.

Case Title: State of Jharkhand v. Shiv Shankar Sharma| SLP(C) 10622 of 2022