The Jharkhand High Court on December 27 gave a major relief to Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the illegal stone mining lease case. The division bench headed by the Chief Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra and Justice Ananda Sen dismissed the public interest litigation filed activist Sunil Mahto and said that the PIL is a repetition of an earlier one filed by petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma.
In the PIL, Mr. Mahto had alleged that Mr. Soren misused his office and power to allocate mining leases to himself and his family members. He had also alleged Jharkhand CM having made disproportionate assets through unknown sources of income.
The case was heard during November 2023 in the Jharkhand High Court at which time the names of Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his wife Kalpana Soren, and sister-in-law Sarla Murmu were mentioned. The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Mishra and Justice Anand Sen had reserved the decision after hearing the arguments of both the sides.
