THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
New Delhi, Nov 14: The Supreme Court has put a stay on the CBI investigation into the Jharkhand Assembly appointment scam. During the hearing, the top court orally stated that the High Court’s order was unreasonable.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) for an investigation into the illegal appointments in the Jharkhand Assembly was filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma. The petition alleged that irregularities occurred in the appointments made between 2005 and 2007 in the Assembly.
On September 23, the High Court ordered a CBI probe into the matter.
Initially, a commission led by Justice Vikramaditya Prasad was formed to investigate the matter. The commission submitted its report to the Governor in 2018, following which the Governor instructed the Assembly Speaker to take action. However, no action has been taken so far.
The High Court bench, led by Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad, had ordered the CBI investigation, against which the state government and the Assembly approached the Supreme Court.
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Case background
Earlier on October 12, the Jharkhand High Court had granted one more opportunity to the Assembly secretary to produce the report of Justice Vikramaditya Prasad Commission, submitted to the then Governor (Now President) Droupadi Murmu in 2018.
The Commission, constituted by the State government, had probed largescale bungling into the appointment of over 500 employees between 2005 and 2007.
On October 12, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra and Justice Ananda Sen, while hearing a PIL filed demanding an investigation into illegal appointments, fixed November 9 for the next hearing after lawyer Anil Kumar, appearing for the Assembly secretary, informed the court that a letter had been written to the Justice SJ Mukhopadhyay Commission seeking the report of the Justice Vikramaditya Commission.
The court, during its hearing on October 4, had warned the Assembly secretary to face criminal contempt proceedings if he did not submit the report by October 12.
The court had even observed that “the report is deliberately not produced before us even though Her Excellency the then Governor of the State has directed the Speaker of Vidhan Sabha to carry out the proposals given in the report. So, we consider it to be an obstruction to justice.”
Incidentally, the Assembly has not submitted the report saying that the report of Justice Vikramaditya Prasad Commission is currently with the Commission headed by Justice SJ Mukhopadhyay, a retired Supreme Court judge. The court had sought the report at least four times in the past.
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Notably, the State government had constituted Justice Mukhopadhyay Commission with a mandate to examine the legal issues that may crop up if the Assembly acts on the report of the late Vikramaditya Prasad Commission, which is said to have made adverse comments on the role of three successive speakers and several assembly officers.
So, the assembly’s reluctance to submit the report, whose copy is easily available to several persons in Jharkhand, is not without reason.
The Assembly compulsorily retired two joint secretaries-Ram Sagar and Ravindra Singh-in 2018 after the commission report came. The reason given for action against them was that they were involved in a conspiracy for illegal appointments. But it did not take further action.
According to sources, the process of all these appointments was initiated during the tenure of Inder Singh Namdhari and completed when Alamgir Alam was the speaker. Alam’s successor Satyanand Bhokta gave out-of-turn promotions to several such employees.
Notably, the then-governor, in her letter to the Speaker, had clearly written that the Justice Vikramaditya commission had given a detailed report on 30 reference points with its recommendation for action. “The Commission had clearly mentioned the names of officers and employees who were accountable for the bungling in appointments,” she pointed out in her letter.
She also pointed out that the commission recommended a CBI probe into the CD consisting of financial transactions for the jobs. The CD surfaced during the tenure of Alamgir Alam.
