email : pilbuster@gmail.com
The cost imposed on Bhrastachar Nirmoolan Sanghatana by Mumbai High Court was a welcome step in the direction of people using PIL’s for malafide purposes. However the guidelines set by Supreme Court of India will be the real deterrent in people misusing PIL’s. Now let’s examine a PIL filed in Jharkhand High Court and accusing ex Chief Minister and his cronies to do a Hawala Scam of Rs.4000 cr.
In Jharkhand High Court a PIL was filed by one Durga Oraon in which he has exposed the infamous Madhu Koda Hawala scam and his amassing of Rs.4000 cr. EX CM of Jharkhand Mr. Madhu Koda has been accused of corruption ever since 2007. In Nov.2008 he along with his alleged associates was made party to a PIL pending in front of Jharkhand High Court. Subsequent to PIL these individuals and few others were made party to a case filed in the Vigilance Court in Jharkhand. Later Enforcement Directorate took cognizance of the matter and filed an ECIR. The investigating agencies and media and some individuals have been crying hoarse about a Rs. 4000 cr. Hawala Scam. But was there a scam at all because in the first chargesheet filed by ED the amount in question has come down to Rs. 40cr.
It all started with the PIL filed by one Mr. Durga Oraon. We tried to reach him for comments however he could not be contacted and remained untraceable. We requested Ms. Ritu Kumar the lawyer for litigant and she also did not help us in interviewing Mr. Durga Oraon. However her vehement denial to our bonafide requests made us wary. In our zeal to understand the matter better we secured a copy of the PIL. Perusal of PIL documents brought out some glaring facts which made the intentions of the litigant look very doubtful.
Lets discuss these facts.
1. Who is Durga Oraon?
In the original filing of this PIL the litigant is named as Durga Munda. Subsequently he is named as Durga Oraon and continues to be Durga Oraon till date. However the letter that litigant claims that he wrote to the Acting Chief Justice of Jharkhand is written by one Somnath Chatterjee but signed by Durga Oraon. We have visually examined these documents by accessing a court-certified copy of the PIL.
In this PIL Durga Oraon Claims to be a poor tribal with limited knowledge of government functioning. However the sophistication and resourcefulness showed by him in collecting the documents against the accused denies this fact. Another thing which is very peculiar is that petitioner has annexed multiple copies of identical documents to make this a very voluminous petition. Experts tell us that this an underhand strategy usually used to make the authorities believe that charges are grave and there is a lot of substance in allegations. Moreover many of these documents are purposefully misinterpreted.
Apart from the documents which are in public domain the authenticity of the rest is highly questionable. But the real question is how a responsible lawyer filed this PIL without examining the genuineness of these documents or ensuring the veracity of the allegations in the light of these documents. Because even the documents do not support the allegations made by the petitioner. Our investigations further revealed that there may be a nexus of some powerful and resourceful people who orchestrated this drama of deception to settle personal vendetta. We will come to this nexus later but for the time being lets examine the allegations first.
2. The petitioner says that Mr. Binod Sinha was not an income tax payee before 2005. However Binod Sinha’s lawyer tells us that he has been paying income tax since 1993. We will be publishing his PAN number on this blog which will easily establish that for how long he has been paying Income Tax.
3. The list of 44 M.O.U allegedly signed by Madhu Koda were actually signed in the regime of chief ministers preceding him. This is a list freely available on the Jharkhand Govt. Website. And if the petitioner says that these 44 companies bribed someone then why he has not made these companies a party to the PIL. The list currently available on the website is an updated list. As per the list submitted in this PIL the last company is M/S VST Tractors & Tillers Bangalore. The updated list has been uploaded to the following link.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJYjU1NWU3YWEtNmEzNy00OTZlLWFhMWQtMjRhMWJmYmQ5Njdl&hl=en
4. The letter purportedly written by P.S. to CM recommending Binod Sinha and Sanjay Chowdhary for banking business is actually written to A Bastwade and Tony Deldar Singh. This letter seems to be an Expression of Interest shown by the Govt. to attract investment in Jharkhand. The genuineness of this letter can only be verified by examining the original. The letters annexed after this are letters of Good Standing issued by Indusind Bank to Mr. Binod Sinha and a separate letter to Mr. Sanjay Chowdhary. It is a blatant distortion of facts and surprisingly how the court or investigating agencies have not taken cognizance of this glaring lie right in front of their eyes. These documents are uploaded to the following links.
page1
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJOTY0OGRlMDQtZjVmNS00MjE0LWFkYTItZmQ4ZThlZDk0OGNl&hl=en
page 2
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJZTU5M2I2NDItZmQxZC00ZGE5LTkyZTUtMjEyNmNjZjc4N2M1&hl=en
page 3
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJMTE1NTkzNjYtMmYyNi00M2Q0LThjNTctOTdkOWM0Y2RlMGQ3&hl=en
Binod Sinha’s Letter issued by bank
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJYjA5NzQ3OTAtNzdkYi00YTM3LTgzMDktYjdkZDBkZDJmZTc3&hl=en
Sanjay Chowdhary’s Letter issued by bank
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJNjM4MDZkZWUtNWFkMy00ODNkLTg3NWUtYmRiMjFiMzlhNTA5&hl=en
5. The next document is an unsigned tenancy agreement document. Such tenancy agreements are standard practices however the original of this document was not available to examine. Even if for a moment we don’t question the authenticity of this document, still only the petitioner or people behind him can explain that how a tenancy agreement which is not even signed be construed as an indication of hundreds of crores of investment in real estate. This is available at the following link.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJZTE0Njc5NDUtNmFjYS00OThhLWEyMGUtYjMyMDVhMjhiNWU0&hl=en
6. There is another document which seems to be an agreement between Ispat Industries and GAR for the development of a steel complex. We again could not trace the original of this document. However without going into the authenticity this is definnot a document which has anything to do with alleged real estate developments by the accused. This is available at the following link.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJZmViYzNlODctYjk4ZS00Zjc5LTk5YmQtMWMzYjkxMzkzYjll&hl=en
7. We tried to find the details of the companies allegedly floated by Binod Sinha and group allegedly used to launder Madhu Koda’s ill gotten money. The petitioner misled the court by saying that these companies came into existence only when Madhu Koda came into power. This again looks like an attempt to bias the court. Few of these companies are well established companies much before Madhu Koda came into power. Out of these companies the ones which are opened recently are dormant companies without any business activities. When we asked the representative of these companies he said that these companies were formed with future projects in mind. Some of these companies don’t even have bank accounts. So how these companies could have been used to launder money. A major company highlighted by the petitioner is Royal Tata based in Thailand. This company was incorporated in 2002 and due government clearances to invest in this company were taken by Binod Sinha.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJOGU5NTU0MjUtNGY2OC00MTI0LWEyYzMtNDZiZmNiMTM5MjU3&hl=en
8. Petitioner has also attached company master data of many companies which are freely available from the Registrar Of Companies website. Only petitioner can say that who these companies belong to as the information doesn’t highlight who shareholders are. Very interestingly there is a company called Ranchi Ispat and Metal Pvt. Ltd in this list. Petitoner has even attached documents which show that Mr. Saddam Azad son of Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad resident of South Avenue Delhi is one of the partners. I wonder why the petitioner has not made Mr. Saddam Azad a party to this litigation?
page1
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJYmQwNjE5NDMtNGY4MS00YzkzLWExOTMtNzI3ZjFhMTE2MDdj&hl=en
page2
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJZDQzMGVkMDctZGNjMy00NTg4LTgyODMtODkwYTdhNzMxNTk4&hl=en
page3
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJN2ViNmM3YjEtOWQ4Zi00NWFjLTk0MjMtNmFiZDY0ZjY5NWUy&hl=en
page4
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJODZiZThkNDYtYWI4Ni00ZDkyLTk0ODctOTU2YTIzMzhlMjlm&hl=en
page5
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vRFosE4UrJZDRiNDFkZjEtZTQwOS00NDJiLTllNTktOTMyOGQ5OWUzZTk5&hl=en
So far there have been some glaring discrepancies and misleading submissions by the petitioner in this PIL. Still why this PIL is continuing for over an year? Is it just a saga of proxy litigation and blackmailing in the guise of PIL? Has the media been manipulated into believing the accused are guilty even before trial? Have conspirators managed to prejudice investigating agencies and judiciary against the accused? Is there any hope for the accused to receive a fair treatment and trial till their guilt is proven?
There is lot more to this story which I will be writing about and providing facts and documents to support it. This is a story which almost sounds like the Plot of upcoming Ram Gopal Verma movie “Rann”.
Too tired now. Will continue after a nap . Feedbacks, complaints and queries are welcome. Long hyperlinks to the documents will be shortened soon. Please bear with me.
