Soren held guilty of murder

NEW DELHI: The ‘tainted ministers’ issue came back to haunt the government on Tuesday when Union coal minister Shibu Soren was held guilty by a Delhi court of murdering his private secretary Sashinath Jha.

As the minister does not command a large political army, the prime minister quickly sought his resignation from the government.

The minister, who was taken into custody soon after the court pronounced its judgment, is expected to put in his papers late on Tuesday evening.

Mr Soren had to step down in July 2004 after a Jharkhand court issued non-bailable warrant against him for his alleged involvement in the massacre of 20 persons in Chirrudih some 20 years ago. Mr Soren, however, wrestled his way back into the government in November 2004 after securing bail in the case.

Setting the tone for attack on the government in Parliament over the issue, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be held accountable for misusing the prime ministerial prerogative in accommodating tainted ministers. “That Soren had to go was obvious. The larger issue is the criminalisation of the Cabinet,” Mr Jaitley said.

Jha was abducted from Dhaula Kuan in New Delhi on May 22, 1994 and the police found his body in a village near Ranchi in 1998. According to police sources, Jha was murdered because he knew of a deal between Mr Soren’s party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, and the Congress to save the PV Narasimha Rao government during a no-confidence vote in Parliament. A Delhi sessions court found Mr Soren guilty of kidnapping and hatching the conspiracy to kill his secretary.

Those convicted along with Mr Soren are Nand Kishore Mehta alias Nandu, Shailendra Bhattacharya, Pashupati Nath Mehta alias Posho and Ajay Kumar Mehta alias Dillip. Two other accused were acquitted. Mr Soren was present in the court when the judge pronounced the verdict. All the five, including Mr Soren, have been taken into custody. The court fixed November 30 for hearing the arguments on the quantum of sentence.

The development is sure to provide the Opposition yet another stick to beat the UPA with. Although Mr Soren is a non-entity in the Delhi power equations, his party is part of the Madhu Koda government in Jharkhand. The JMM has an alliance with the Congress in the state.

For the past several months, the government has been getting judicial strictures on one front or the other. On Monday, the Supreme Court had given the government a caning for subverting the rule of law to help “potential allies” in the Mayawati case. The court said it had to intervene regularly in governance issues as the government had failed to perform its statutory duties.