The Jharkhand High Court recently delivered a significant judgment, bringing relief to Chief Minister Hemant Soren by dismissing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed against him and his family members. This PIL pertained to the alleged allocation of a mining lease in their names. The court, comprising a division bench of Chief Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra and Justice Ananda Sen, ruled that the petition was essentially a repetition of an earlier one filed by petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma, which the Supreme Court had already rejected.
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RTI activist and advocate Sunil Mahto, in his petition, had informed the court that Hemant Soren, while holding the position of Minister of Mines Department, had allocated a mining lease to himself on an 88 decimal land in Angada. Additionally, it was alleged that 11 acres of land were allocated in the names of Hemant Soren’s wife, Kalpana Soren, and her sister Sarla Murmu’s company, Sohrai Livestock Private Limited, in the Barhe industrial area of Chanho, Ranchi. The petition also mentioned that CM’s press advisor Abhishek Prasad ‘Pintu’ and CM’s MLA representative Pankaj Mishra were allotted mining leases.
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The judgment, delivered through virtual mode, came just before the retirement of Chief Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra. The hearing of the case was completed in November, and the bench had reserved its order since then. Advocate Piyush Chitresh, representing the State Government, highlighted that the Supreme Court had previously rejected a similar PIL, leading to the dismissal of this petition. However, petitioner’s advocate and former advocate General Ajit Kumar argued that his petition was distinctly different from the one filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma, focusing solely on the mining lease issue. He had submitted a detailed affidavit to establish how this PIL differed from the earlier one.
This ruling by the Jharkhand High Court has thus put an end to the allegations against CM Hemant Soren and his family regarding the mining lease allocations, affirming the dismissal of similar allegations by the Supreme Court in the past.
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