The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case filed by an NGO Jharkhand Against Corruption, challenging the Jharkhand High Court’s order whereby court monitoring of the investigation by the CBI and the State police in the 2012 Rajya Sabha horse trading case was dispensed with.
A division bench of Justices RM lodha and SK Singh issued notices to the Jharkhand Government, CBI, Election Commission and four others on a special leave petition filed by Jharkhand Against Corruption on Friday last. The court has sought their replies within 10 weeks. The petition has been filed through advocate Nirmal Kumar Ambastha. The Jharkhand High Court had disposed of the petition by the NGO on September 20, 2013 after observing that the CBI was carrying out the investigation sincerely and there was no need to monitor it.
The High Court also observed that the investigation has already been carried out by the CBI; part charge-sheet has already been filed against six persons, including one MlA (Sita Soren), sizeable amount of Rs 2.15 crore was recovered from the vehicle of one RK Agrawal, who was also contesting the election and the said person is already arrested and still in jail.
The High Court also said that in the case of kidnapping there is a thorough investigation, and the accused was arrested by the State Police, investigation is over by the state investigation agency and they are also seeking sanction from the Speaker as required under Section 197 of CrPC to prosecute her. But the petitioner NGO said that the high court erred in its conclusion since the CBI was yet to complete investigation against three MlAs — Vishnu Bhaiya from JMM, K N Tripathi from Congress and Suresh Paswan from RJD. The Returning Officer, while indicting them, had reported to the Election Commission that the three MlAs had shown their ballot papers to persons other than the representative of their own political parties. Paswan now happens to be a Minister in the Hemant Soren Government.
The petitioner said that the investigation in a similar case regarding bribery of MlAs in Rajya Sabha elections, 2010 has not been completed yet and is in very initial stage and the investigation in the 2012 case also did not progress until the high court directed the CBI to submit status report and started monitoring of the investigation. The NGO has said that the CBI has filed the chargesheet against only one MlA, Sita Soren from JMM, and no progress has been shown with regards to other three MlAs. It also contended that the accused MlAs are openly threatening the prosecution witnesses to retract from their earlier statement during investigation.
Ironically, Sita Soren is still at large and the court has granted permission to the police to attach her properties if she did not submit to the court of law. The 2012 biennial Rajya Sabha polls for two seats from the State were first held on March 30. On the morning of the polls, a car was apprehended by the income tax department carrying Rs 2.15 crore. The car allegedly belonged to a candidate, RK Agrawal. The election was countermanded the next day on recommendation of the EC.