NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren and the government's appeal against the HC order on maintainability of PILs for probe in mining lease issue. The Jharkhand high court order had accepted the maintainability of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in connection with shell companies allegedly related to Soren and his associates.

The SC has set aside the high court order. “We have allowed these two appeals and have set aside the June 3, 2022 order passed by the Jharkhand high court, holding that these PILs were not maintainable,” the bench said. The JMM leader has been accused of granting himself a mining lease as the state's mining minister. A bench of Justices UU Lalit, S R Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia had reserved its judgement on August 17 on separate pleas of the Jharkhand government and Soren against the high court's order. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, had earlier submitted that the high court had decided on maintainability even before all the documents were placed before it. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Soren, had questioned the credentials of the PIL petitioner. Additional solicitor general SV Raju, appearing for the enforcement directorate, had said criminal petitions should not be thrown out on technical grounds. BJP national vice president and former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das in February this year claimed Soren abused his position and granted himself the favour of a mining lease, an issue involving both the conflict of interest and corruption. Both Soren and his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) have denied the allegations.