By PTI
RANCHI: Political rivals are behind the PIL on the issue of granting mining lease to him with the motive to destabilise the democratically elected government in the state, Chief Minister Hemant Soren has said in his affidavit to the Jharkhand High Court.
The chief minister in his affidavit, filed through his lawyer Kundan Kumar Mishra, said that the contents of the PIL are akin to the letters and statements made by BJP accusing him of misusing his office of chief minister, but accepted that he was granted a lease for mining stones on 0.88 acres in Angarha block in the state.
Soren in his affidavit claimed that he has not derived any profit or gain from the mining lease while he has been the chief minister of the state since 2019.
The granting of the mining lease cannot be a reason for disqualification of his membership from the Assembly and the PIL should be dismissed with exemplary costs, it said.
No mining activity has been carried out in the land as yet as the consent for mining has not yet been granted by the deputy commissioner of Ranchi district, under which Angarha falls.
Soren had sent a letter in February this year to surrender the license granted to him and it has been accepted, the affidavit filed on Friday said.
The HC on Friday deferred the hearing into the PIL due to the unavailibilty of the Bench.
The PIL was filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma alleging that Soren has misused his office in obtaining the mining lease.
The act is violation of the rule that public representatives are banned from holding an office of profit.
Sharma has demanded an inquiry by central agencies like CBI and the ED into the mining lease granted to Soren by the state’s mines department headed by the chief minister himself.
The HC while hearing the petition had issued a notice to Hemant Soren on April 8 to file his affidavit in the case even as the advocate general Rajiv Ranjan had informed that the chief minister has already surrendered the lease.
Soren in his affidavit said that he had applied for a mining lease in his name in 2008 and was granted it for 10 years.
The lease expired in May 2018 and fresh applications were invited by the Ranchi deputy commissioner.
He had applied again in 2021 and the lease was again granted in his favour.
“The lease was granted as per the terms and conditions of the Jharkhand Minor Minerals Concession Rules 2004 which was amended from time to time,” he said.
His affidavit said, “The petitioner has been set up and the present petition has been caused to be filed by my political rivals to destabilise the democratically elected govenrment of the state of Jharkhand.”
Soren has claimed “personal animosity and political rivalry” to be the reasons for him being pulled into the PIL and said that the petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma is animus towards the Soren family for more than two decades.
“His (Shiv Shankar Sharma) father Dr Gautam Sharma had, in 2006, deposed against my father Shibu Soren before a Delhi court to falsely implicate him in a murder case, in which my father was eventually acquitted by the high court and the Supreme Court,” the affidavit by Soren said.
The affidavit, sworn on May 4 in Hyderabad when he was in the southern city for the treatment of his ailing mother, also said that the high court should verify the credentials of the petitioner of a PIL before issuing orders.
Referring to the Supreme Court mandate on public interest litigations, it said that “extraneous and ulterior motives” of petitioners should be curbed by the high court.
“…a mere comparison of the allegations contained in the petition submitted by the BJP and the allegations made in the present writ petition show that both are similar and the handiwork of the same person. It’s requested to dismiss the petition with exemplary costs to the petitioner as he is guilty of abuse of the process of law and with extraneous considerations,” the affidavit said.
The chief minister has also cited previous Supreme Court judgment in the State of Uttarakhand Vs Balwant Singh Chaufal case of 2010 wherein the apex court had ruled that courts should prima facie verify the credentials of a petitioner for entertaining a PIL.
