Supreme Court grants relief to Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, holds PIL against CM alleging money laundering not maintainable

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the public interest litigation petitions filed against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren before the Jharkhand High Court alleging money laundering and irregularities in granting mining leases, is not maintainable [State of Jharkhand vs Shiv Shankar Sharma and ors]..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit, with Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia allowed the appeal filed by the State government in this regard and set aside the order of the High Court which had held that the PILs were maintainable. The bench also made some strong observations against the High Court verdict, stating that it should not have entertained the plea containing half-baked truth and filed by a person with doubtful credentials."But on generalized averments which are nothing but mere allegations at this stage, the Court cannot become a forum to investigate the alleged acts of misdeeds against high constitutional authorities. It was not proper for the High Court to entertain a PIL which is based on mere allegations and half baked truth that too at the hands of a person who has not been able to fully satisfy his credentials and has come to the Court with unclean hands," the Court said.The Court also made it clear that such proceedings were an abuse of its process. .The Jharkhand High Court had earlier this year directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe into the concerned allegations after a bench led by the Chief Justice of the High Court relied on a sealed cover report from the Enforcement Directorate (ED).The High Court had initially rejected the State's objection to acceptance of the sealed cover report. The Chief Justice-led Bench had directed the State to produce details of the 16 FIRs relating to an alleged MGNREGA scam, and took note of the fact that a Mining Secretary was arrested and suspended in connection with the matters.The State had then approached the Supreme Court against the proceedings. The top court had on May 24, directed the High Court to decide upfront the maintainability of the PILs filed by one Shiv Shankar Sharma.Pursuant to that, the High Court on June 3 held that the proceedings are maintainable. The State then approached the apex court against the same by way of the present plea..The Supreme Court had in August, while reserving its verdict in the matter, had stayed the proceedings before the Jharkhand High Court. Pertinently, the Court had deprecated the use of the PIL route to initiate an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe when there was no predicate offence registered..In its judgment today, the top court made it clear that it was not proper for the High Court to have entertained PILs based on 'mere allegations'. Particularly, when the petitioner before the High Court filed his pleas in violation of rules, in terms of not fully satisfying the judicial fora of his credentials and informing it of earlier dismissed PILs on similar facts. The judgment also noted that the petitioner's earlier pleas were dismissed with costs, the same counsel had filed a similar plea in the name of another client, and that his father was a prosecution witness against the CM's father in a criminal case. With respect to the mining license, the top court noted that the matter was pending consideration before the Election Commission of India, and therefore, the prayers for probe by central agencies was not maintainable. With regards to the PIL alleging money-laundering, the Court said that the sweeping nature of the allegations and the locus of the petitioner made a case for it to be dismissed at the threshold. " ... the locus of the petitioner is questionable and the clear fact that he has not approached the Court with clean hands makes it a case which was liable to be dismissed at the very threshold ... the allegations which were made by the petitioner are vague, very much generalized and not at all substantiated by anything worthy to be called an evidence. Allegations of corruption and siphoning of money from shell companies are nothing but a bald allegation, without substantiating the allegations in any manner whatsoever," the Court stated. .Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi appeared for the State of Jharkhand and the Chief Minister respectively. Additional Solicitor General SV Raju appeared for the respondents.[Read Judgment]