Hours after the West Bengal Police arrested three Congress MLAs from Jharkhand on Sunday, 31 July, Rajiv Kumar, the lawyer who filed Public Interest Litigations (PILs) against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren over alleged mining irregularities, was also arrested by the Kolkata Police.
Kumar was arrested on charges of allegedly duping people of money amounting to Rs 50 lakh.
The three arrested MLAs are Irfan Ansari, MLA from Jamtara, Rajesh Kachhap, MLA from Khijri, and Naman Bixal, MLA from Kolebira. On Sunday, they were suspended from the Congress party.
The arrests of the MLAs came on a day when another Congress MLA from Jharkhand, Kumar Jaimangal, lodged a police complaint in Ranchi, accusing the three arrested MLAs of “offering Rs 10 crore” to “topple the present JMM and Congress government” allegedly at the behest of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Jharkhand High Court lawyers will stop working in protest against the arrest of advocate Rajiv Kumar by the Kolkata Police. Meanwhile, a habeas corpus has been filed in Jharkhand HC.
Ranchi Police said that the Kolkata Police had not informed them about the arrest. The arrest of the advocate is nowhere related to us, they said, as per ANI.
Two of Three PILs Against CM Soren
Meanwhile, Rajiv Kumar, known as “PIL man” in Jharkhand, had recently filed three PILs on behalf of a petitioner, Shiv Shankar Sharma. Two of the PILs were directed at CM Soren.
One of the PILs accused Soren of granting himself a mining lease while holding the mining portfolio.
The other PIL stated that Soren allegedly had ties with shell companies and alleged money laundering, which is currently being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Kumar is also the lawyer in a PIL that alleged financial irregularities in the MGNREGA scheme, leading to the arrest of Jharkhand Mining Secretary Pooja Singhal and Soren's aide Pankaj Mishra by the ED.
In the mining petition filed in February, Kumar also sought protection through an additional plea, claiming that he had been threatened.
However, Advocate General Rajeev Ranjan had submitted that the plea was “frivolous” and filed to “scandalise” the chief minister, The Indian Express reported.
Moreover, Soren, in his response to the mining PIL, had submitted that the allegations were similar to another petition filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that “both are similar and the handiwork of the same person.”
(With inputs from The Indian Express.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)