The State Government has urged Central probe agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) not to summon its police officials for the purpose of questioning in the illegal mining case as the state government has filed an SLP before the Supreme Court challenging the jurisdiction of the ED in the Barharwa case.

State home secretary Rajiv Arun Ekka, in this regard, shot a letter to the ED via the office of Jharkhand DGP. A copy of the letter has also been furnished to Pramod Mishra.

Earlier, Barharwa DSP Pramod Mishra was to appear before ED on Monday, but he fail to turn up at ED office for second consecutive time.   The letter has been written in the wake of ED summoning the former DSP of Barharwa in Sahibganj district in the Barharwa toll case. Pramod Mishra on Thursday skipped the second consecutive summon of the ED.  Jharkhand police DSP Pramod Kumar Mishra who on Monday skipped the ED in Barharwa toll plaza case claimed this and said that due to this reason he could not go to the ED.

“I got a notice from the ED and I was asked to turn up at 11 AM on today. I was ready to go when the information came that the state government had filed a SLP before the Supreme Court. Law and order are the state subjects. I am a state government employee so whatever comes it should come from the state government. After the ED issued the summons, the government filed a writ before the Supreme Court.

 I am also a deponent in this writ petition,” DSP Pramod Mishra said. State home secretary Rajiv Arun Ekka letter states that summon of the Enforcement Directorate…summoning Pramod Mishra Deputy SP Sahibganj and the issue of calling for and summoning police officials by the Enforcement Directorate being outside its preview and the same has been challenged by the state of Jharkhand in a writ petition in the honourable Supreme Court of India.

 The case has been registered as the State of Jharkhand and Others Vs Enforcement Directorate with diary number…filed on December 12, 2022, the letter accessed by this correspondent reads.

 “The above case has been mentioned for listening and it is expected to be taken up for hearing very soon. You are therefore requested to communicate this to the Enforcement Directorate requesting them in the meantime not to proceed further in the matter and also advise the concerned officer to await the outcome of the writ petition before the Supreme Court of India,” the letter reads.

Well-placed sources said that the state government made this communication in the wake of ED serving a second summon to Pramod Kumar Mishra to assist the probe as his questioning was required at the Barharwa toll plaza.

This case lodged by Pakur-based businessman Shambhu Nandan Kumar at Barharwa police station and investigated by the Sahibganj police is one of the prime cases on which the illegal stone investigation is based.