Ranchi: The Jharkhand High Court today
directed the state to produce a progress report on November 12
on the vigilance probe into the disproportionate assets case
against former chief minister Madhu Koda and some of his
former cabinet colleagues.
The two-member bench headed by Chief Justice Gyan Sudha
Mishra was hearing a PIL filed by petitioner Durga Oraon in
November 2008 seeking a CBI probe into the assets of Koda and
several of his former cabinet colleagues.
The PIL alleged that former ministers Bandhu Tirkey,
Chandraprakash Choudhary, Kamlesh Singh, Enos Ekka and
Harinarayan Rai had multiplied their wealth during their
ministerial term.
Later, Koda and his alleged aides Vinod Kumar Sinha and
Sanjay Choudhary were made parties through interlocutory
application in the DA case.
On an earlier hearing, the bench had directed the I-T
department to furnish relevant documents including I-T returns
filed by the former ministers in connection with the DA case.
Ekka and Rai are currently in judicial custody after they
surrendered before a special vigilance court in September.
On October 5, the Vigilance Department had filed
charge sheet against Ekka and Rai against whom petitioner
Kumar Vinod filed a PIL with the vigilance court accusing them
of amassing assets running into crores of rupees between
April, 2005 and September 2008.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, November 05, 2009, 18:57