The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday filed chargesheet against six persons, including Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MlA Sita Soren, daughter in-law of JMM chief Shibu Soren, accused in the horse-trading case of 2012.
“An interim charge-sheet against six persons was filed today as investigations in the case are still on,” said a CBI official requesting anonymity. “We have clear evidence against Sita regarding money transactions of `1.5 crore during the Rajya Sabha elections of 2012,” added the CBI official.
The other persons, who figured in the chargesheet were father of JMM legislator BM Majhi (former official of Indian Oil Corporation based in Bhubaneswar, Odisha) and Sita’s close associate Rajendra Mandal, who is the son of former JMM leader Suraj Mandal.
Independent candidates in the Rajya Sabha polls of 2012 RK Agrawal and Pawan Kumar Dhoot, besides Dhoot’s poll agent Sunil Kumar Maheshwari, have also been chargesheeted.
These people have been charged under various provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI arrested Agrawal on May 14 in Ranchi.
According to sources, the CBI has gathered evidence that Jama MlA Sita received `1.5 crore from Independent candidate and Jamshedpur industrialist RK Agrawal, a week before the poll date.
In this operation, her aides were her father and Rajendra Mandal, among others.
The CBI has also gathered evidence against Maheshwari offering money to the legislators for getting votes in favour of Dhoot. CBI had undertaken before the Jharkhand High Court on May 10 that it would file the chargesheet within a fortnight, as soon as it obtains sanctions from the Speaker against the accused legislators. The sources however, said the CBI court was yet to take cognizance of the chargesheet filed in the horse-trading case and has sought the case diary in this connection.
Summons is likely to be issued against those who figure in the charge-sheet, by the court on Wednesday.
Sita had landed into controversy after a case was lodged against her on December 25 last year for abducting her former aide Vikas Pandey, also a CBI witness, to influence the ongoing investigation by the agency.
Sita went missing after a local court issued an arrest warrant against her this February for her alleged role in kidnapping her former office assistant. At least 14 Jharkhand legislators, including Saurabh Narayan Singh, Aanant Pratap Deo and Sarfaraz Ahmad of the Congress; Chandra Prakash Chaudhary and Uma Kant Rajak of the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU); Sanjay Yadav of the RJD; Sita Soren and Polush Soren of the JMM; Ramchandra Baitha of the BJP, besides several other legislators are under the CBI scanner in the horse-trading case of 2012.
The case had been lodged after the Income Tax department seized `2.15 crore from a private vehicle on March 30 last year belonging to an aide of one of the contestants, RK Agarwal. After the seizure of cash, the election was countermanded by the EC.
The Jharkhand High Court, on April 5, 2012 had directed the Election Commission to hand over the “grave case of involvement of money power, horse-trading and influence” during the Rajya Sabha elections 2012 to CBI for probing the “criminality of persons” involved in it.