On 28 june, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren will appear before the Election Commission.
The issue is the granting of a lease for a stone mine in Ranchi’s Angara block in his favour. Soren had received a notification from the election commission requesting him to provide justification for why no action should be taken against him for having a mining lease approved in his favour.
On June 14, ECI gave him one further delay and scheduled a private hearing for June 28.
The issue is the granting of a lease for a stone mine in Ranchi’s Angara block in his favour.
Soren had received notice from the election commission requesting him to justify why no action should be taken against him for having a mining lease awarded in his favour that “prima facie violates” rules pertaining to the Representation of People’s Act.
He was required to respond by May 10 by the ECI. But on May 9, the Chief Minister asked the Election Commission for a four-week extension of time on the grounds that his mother was ill and receiving treatment.
Soren had earlier refuted all of the accusations in a letter to secretary ECI.
In the beginning, he stated, “I deny and dispute all allegations of the BJP about my alleged disqualification for being a member of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly on the ground of a mining lease, obtained by me in May 2021, under the said section 9A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, or any other ground whatsoever.”
The Supreme Court last month ordered the Jharkhand High Court to make a decision regarding the maintainability of the public interest litigations that sought an investigation into the granting of mining leases to Soren and others.
Through an affidavit, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) previously asserted before the Jharkhand High Court that Pooja Singhal, the secretary of the mining department, played a part in the allocation of the mining lease to respondent number seven, who happens to be Chief Minister Hemant Soren, during the course of the investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Notably, Chief Minister Hemant Soren is the seventh respondent in the aforementioned Public Interest Litigation (PIL) brought by one Shiv Shankar Sharma, who wants the CBI to investigate Soren for obtaining a stone mining lease in his name while grossly abusing his position of authority.
The role of some firms has also become apparent, according to ED. These businesses are dispersed over the region that extends beyond the state of Jharkhand.
The MGNREGA scandal, Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s mining lease, and a number of other petitions are now being heard by the Jharkhand High Court.
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