The Jharkhand High Court on Monday disposed of the public interest litigation (PIl) filed by anti-corruption activist Durga Oraon which had led to a CBI probe into the multi-crore disproportionate assets case against former Chief Minister Madhu Koda and his other Cabinet colleagues.
“The case was disposed of by the Jharkhand High Court saying that there was no need to keep the case pending any more as the charge sheet has already been filed by the CBI after proper investigation and no substantial evidences have yet been found against the other accused in the case during the investigation, currently being undertaken by the agency,” said CBI advocate Mokhtar Khan. The court, however, gave a liberty to Oraon to approach the trial court if he finds aggrieved by the status report of the CBI filed in the case. “The petitioner can again take the legal recourse if he feels unsatisfied by the action taken by the investigating agencies,” said petitioner’s advocate Rajiv Kumar.
The PIl was filed in 2008 against Koda and his cabinet colleagues by Durga Oraon accusing them of amassing assets worth thousands of crores more than their known sources of income.
The petitioner sought that criminal cases be filed against six ministers — the then Urban Development Minister Harinarayan Rai, Health Minister Bhanu Pratap Shahi, Human Resource Development Minister Bandhu Tirkey, Rural Development Minister Enos Ekka, Water Resources Minister Kamlesh Singh and land and Revenue Minister Dulal Bhuinya under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The petition had also sought an inquiry against Chandra Prakash Chaudhary, who was a minister in two previous governments headed by Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda.
It was alleged in the petition filed by Durga Oraon that some of the ministers did not even had Permanent Account Number (PAN) when they won the assembly elections but amassed huge property worth millions of rupees within a short tenure of three-and-half-years.