Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren must be feeling politically worried and embarrassed as Jharkhand High Court has ordered a CBI inquiry of suspected suicide of Jharkhand Police Sub Inspector Rupa Tirkey. It may land his very close associate and assembly constituency representative Pankaj Mishra in trouble.
This is not the only bad news emerging from the courtroom as the High Court has also ordered to start criminal proceedings against Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan and Additional Advocate General Sachin Kumar for allegedly scandalizing the court during the hearing of Rupa Tirkey case.
The single bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi of Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday delivered the much awaited judgment of this case while hearing criminal writ petition 139/ 2021 filed by Devanand Oraon who had demanded a CBI inquiry of the death of his daughter.
Now as per the court order Jharkhand police will hand-over documents and evidences of this case to the CBI and the central agency will lodge an FIR.
“The justice has neither been delayed nor denied. However, the government went to extreme level to stop judiciary from discharging its duty. Unverified and wrong allegations were leveled to delay proceeding of the court. We pray for the soul of Rupa Tirkey,” Rajiv Kumar, the senior lawyer of Jharkhand High court said who appeared on behalf of Oraon.
Rupa Tirkey, a native of Ranchi was posted as officer in-charge of Mahila police station in Sahebganj district in Santhal Pargana division. On May 3 she was found hanging at her official quarter in Sahebganj.
Deceased SI was being threatened right after she lodged an FIR against Pashupati Yadav for allegedly assaulting a woman. Pashupati’s son Dahu Yadav is local criminal. Besides, she had also arrested a close associate of Dahu in this case. Dahu Yadav and Pankaj Mishra and closely associated and Pankaj Mishra being close to chief minister controls enormous power.
The lady refused to either release Dahu’s associate and to withdraw the name of Pashupati from the FIR. It is alleged that after this incident she was being heckled and abused even publically.
As the alleged suicide came to light district police quickly formed a five member Special Investigation Team.
“From the very first day police was playing a doubtful role as the police had decided to close it as a case of FIR. We have information that after suicide Pankaj Mishra was regularly talking to DSP. Even a close associate of chief minister was frequently calling the deputy commissioner of the district. Police refused to lodge FIR on the basis of written complaint of mother of the deceased. One month after the incident, district converted it as a regular case and booked her colleague sub inspector S.K. Kanaujia and her father for abetment of suicide. But the chargesheet was filed only against Kanaujia. While district police was pretending investigation state government appointed a retired High Court judge to carry a judicial inquiry into the whole matter,” said lawyer Rajiv Kumar.
The kind of investigation was going on the family suspected Jharkhand Police is acting under unseen commands. For instance the photographs show her feet touching the floor which is not possible in the case of suicide by hanging. There was bottled water lying on the floor of the room where the body was found. Police did not collect that bottled water for sample to ascertain possible poisoning. Instead it took water sample from kitchen. The investigating officer of this case was frequently changed.
Further, the case diary was also incomplete and full of errors. For instance, the doctor who conducted postmortem on the deceased refused to give any statement to police. The viscera was also not preserved. Police apparently did not preserve bed sheets and other clothes for forensic test to verify whether she was sexually victimized.
The hearing of the petition witnessed an unsavory situation when during hearing of the petition on August 13 the Advocate General told the court that this case should be transferred to other court. Advocate General said after the end of one such hearing of this petition held on August 11, he had heard Rajiv Kumar; counsel for the petitioner, stating that the 200% the court will refer this case to the CBI.
Justice Dwivedi refused to recuse himself from hearing of this suicide case but he referred the matter to Jharkhand High Court Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan on administrative side for administrative decision on whether or not he should hear this case. Justice Dwivedi had commented that “merely on such submission of the learned Advocate General, the Court is not required to recuse from the case as nothing should come in the way of dispensation of justice or discharge of duty as a Judge and judicial decision-making.” In the meantime the petitioner filed a criminal contempt notice against Advocate General and his junior.
On August 26 Jharkhand Chief Justice directed Justice Dwivedi to continue hearing.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren heads JMM-Congress-RJD government and even MLAs are unhappy with Pankaj Mishra and Soren’s excessive weakness for Pankaj Mishra. “In order to save this man chief minister miserably put the credibility of the government on stake. Pankaj Mishra has been behaving like super CM. Now he will have enough time for introspection,” said a member of the ruling combine.
