The Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday uploaded the much-awaited judgment confirming the maintainability of the PIL 4290/2021, and 727/2022 related to shell companies and CM Hemant Soren availing stone mine lease on his name.

The judgment running over 79-page rejected the claim of two senior Supreme Court lawyers Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi, who demanded the court to drop both PILs stating that these are not maintainable.

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad delivered the judgment on June 3 and said that both PILs were maintainable.

Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi had said that petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma did not file the PIL as per the rule of the Jharkhand High Court. He also did not disclose his details and had no credentials. They said that the petitioner had a malafide intention as his father Gautam Sharma was a CBI witness against Shibu Soren in a criminal case. They said that he directly approached the High Court to demand the CBI investigation without exhausting other available options to seek a probe under CrPC. About the mining lease, they said that since CM surrendered the lease the PIL has lost its relevance.

The court in the order has said that even if the criteria under rule 4 or 5 of the Jharkhand High Court Rules, 2010 have not been followed by the petitioner he has submitted material with a genuine public interest.  The court in the order said that no man should be allowed to suffer technical grounds as the rules or procedures are the handmaids of justice and not the mistress of justice.

The court said that it can’t be a ground to dismiss the PIL just because the petitioner’s father was a witness against the father of the respondent

“Herein, the allegation as per the pleadings available on record is serious in nature, investment of ill-gotten money through various sources, which is allowed to be laundered at the cost of society jeopardizing the interest of the people at large,” the court has said.

The court said that the respondent Hemant Soren himself has admitted to having obtained the mining lease while he was holding the post of CM as well as the minister of mining and forest.

“It is a different thing that he may have now surrendered the lease. Such being the admitted position, the mala fide points or the issue of biased approach by the writ petitioner would not be acceptable at all. The allegation cannot be said to be a farce. What ultimately would be the fate of the writ petition lies in the womb of morrow but how such a petition could be