Although the Government under President’s Rule in Jharkhand has received applause for granting permission to the State Vigilance Bureau to lodge FIRs against the accused involved in the multi-crore scams, the decision appears to have kept enough options open to protect the interests of the tainted bigwigs. The permission granted to the Vigilance Bureau for initiating punitive action is conditional and is believed to providing a leeway to key players involved in the scams.
As per the Government order, the Bureau is supposed to lodge FIRs against only those accused who have been summoned and interrogated in the past. The Bureau has been reprimanded to include the name of those suspects in the FIR who have never been summoned for their deposition, despite the fact that there are incriminating documents against them.
Incidentally, barring a few high-profile accused, the Bureau has summoned and interrogated mostly the ‘small fries’ so far whose role remained confined to working in tandem with the kingpins. As per well-placed sources in the Vigilance Bureau, neither the political stalwarts nor the senior bureaucrats — whose dubious role is evident from the documents — could be summoned and interrogated so far and they are not supposed to be booked in the light of the Government’s order.
Official sources said that the cases for which the Vigilance had been granted permission for prosecution include the multi-crore scams in the department of Agriculture and Energy as well. While former Agriculture Minister Nalin Soren is accused of endorsing financial irregularities in purchasing and distribution of seeds and agricultural equipment worth about Rs150 crore, at least two former chairmen of the Jharkhand State Electricity Board are suspects in the multi-crore scam pertaining to the Central Government-sponsored Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (APDRP) in the State. But, in the course of investigation, the Vigilance Bureau has not interrogated them so far and they are all set to reap the benefits of the ‘condition’ that has been imposed by the Government while granting permission for the prosecution.
Indeed, against the sanction to lodge FIRs in other high-profile graft cases related to Jharkhand Renewal Energy Development Authority (JREDA), the Bureau has already summoned and recorded statements of its former Director, Sanjay Sinha, and consequently lodged a FIR against him on Thursday. The wife of the accused is a senior IPS officer in the State. Moreover, the Bureau has also lodged FIRs against the former Member Finance of the JSEB, GNS Munda along with three more — whose statements were recorded too — in the APDRP scam.
Meanwhile, acting upon the quashing of petition filed by a co-accused in the Agriculture scam against the warrant of arrest issued by the Vigilance Court, the Jharkhand High Court has upheld the argument of the accused that unless they were cooperating with the investigation agency, there was no need to arrest them and the Court of Justice RR Prasad quashed the warrant of arrest against all accused including the former Minister.
The court of Justice RR Prasad had observed that none of the grounds mentioned in the requisition for the warrant of arrest came within the purview as contained in Section 73 of the CrPC that envisaged that a warrant was issued for the arrest of any of three classes of persons: Escaped convict, proclaimed offender and a person who is accused of a non-bailable offence and is evading arrest.
As per the ruling of the court: “Nowhere it has been stated in the requisition that the accused is evading arrest and in such situation, learned Magistrate certainly committed illegality in passing the order relating to issuance of warrant against the petitioners. Consequently, the order dated 8.2.2013 is hereby quashed”.
Incidentally, two other benches of the High Court had flayed the Bureau for the delay in arresting the former Minister. Replying to the queries by the court of Justice HC Mishra — that was hearing the bail petition filed by an accused languishing in jail in connection with the Agriculture scam and sought explanation for inordinate delay in arresting of the former Minister while small players were in jail — the Bureau informed that the arrest warrant against the former Minister had been quashed in the light of the order of the court of Justice RR Prasad.