The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered an FIR in opposition to a Kolkata-based businessman, Amit Agrawal, and officers of Kolkata Police, for allegedly lodging a false case in opposition to a Ranchi-based lawyer, Rajeev Kumar, representing a petitioner in two PILs searching for CBI and ED probes in opposition to Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren in Jharkhand excessive courtroom.
The FIR was filed after conducting a preliminary inquiry on the course of the Jharkhand excessive courtroom on November 30. Apart from Agrawal, the central company named ”unknown officers of Kolkata Police” and “unknown others” as accused within the FIR, registered in Delhi, based on company officers.
Agrawal on July 31 final 12 months filed a case with Hare Avenue police station in Kolkata in opposition to Rajeev Kumar and Shiv Shankar Sharma, the petitioner within the two PILs in opposition to Soren. The grievance was that Kumar demanded a bribe of ₹10 crore for getting a PIL in opposition to a neighborhood enterprise dismissed in Jharkhand excessive courtroom.
Kumar was arrested by Kolkata Police on the identical day whereas receiving ₹50 lakh from Agrawal.
CBI in its FIR mentioned that it was entrapment and that Agrawal used the providers of one other individual, Sonu Agrawal, to lure the lawyer.
“…Enquiry additional revealed that the data supplied by Amit Agrawal to Hare Avenue police station was false and the bribe was given to Rajeev Kumar by alluring him with an intention to intervene with the judicial course of. Opposite to the allegations made within the grievance to the Hare Avenue PS, it was Amit Agrawal who known as Rajeev Kumar to Kolkata by means of Sonu Agrawal and provided him cash. Additional, the dialog (with Rajeev Kumar) recorded by Agrawal additionally doesn’t reveal any menace for extortion from Rajeev Kumar,” CBI mentioned in its preliminary enquiry (PE), primarily based on which the FIR was registered on January 18.
It added that “Amit Agrawal had known as Rajeev Kumar to Kolkata and provided and gave him ₹50 lakhs to induce public servant to get the PIL dismissed.”
CBI additionally alleged that Agrawal, in March 2022, tried to affect the lawyer in reference to the PILs in opposition to Soren by means of the then Ranchi deputy commissioner.
Sharma, represented by Kumar, filed two PILs in October 2021 and February 2022,searching for prosecution of Soren for proudly owning a mining lease (which is a violation of the workplace of revenue laws) and sought a CBI and ED investigation into alleged cash laundering by Soren’s household by means of shell firms operated by Agarwal and others.
Whereas the Jharkhand excessive courtroom termed the 2 PILs maintainable, the Supreme Courtroom put aside the order on November 7 final 12 months on account of lack of ”credentials” of the petitioner and allegations primarily based on ”half-baked” reality.
By then, ED had recorded an enforcement grievance info report (ECIR) on August 10, 2022, utilizing the Hare Avenue police station FIR as predicate offence, and launched a cash laundering investigation, making each Agrawal and Kumar accused within the case. Subsequently, each Kumar and Agrawal have been arrested within the case. Each are presently out on bail.
In its first prosecution grievance filed earlier than the particular PMLA courtroom in Ranchi on October 14, ED too mentioned it was Agrawal who lured Kumar into taking the cash.
Agrawal moved the Jharkhand excessive courtroom on October 18, searching for quashing of the ECIR filed by ED and terming his detention wrongful and unlawful. He additionally pleaded for an impartial inquiry by an SIT headed by a retired Supreme Courtroom or excessive courtroom choose into the ECIR, alleging that the case in opposition to him was an try to divert the investigation and save the accused within the Hare Avenue case.
Disposing the petition, the bench of justice Sanjay Dwivedi rejected the primary two pleas, whereas the courtroom allowed the third prayer (of an impartial inquiry) of the petitioner and directed CBI to conduct a preliminary enquiry in two weeks.
Based mostly on the PE, CBI on January 18 registered the case and in addition carried out searches at areas linked with Agrawal in West Bengal and Jharkhand on January 19, the officers cited within the first occasion mentioned.