The Jharkhand cabinet on Tuesday approved guidelines to deal with notices to state officials by external probe agencies, making it mandatory for them to inform the Cabinet Secretariat and Vigilance Department through departmental heads about the communications, an official said.
The decision came when Chief Minister Hemant Soren and a number of state government officials are facing summons by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The cabinet's decision to formulate a standard operating procedure (SOP) was taken at a meeting chaired by Soren in view of "handing over of documents to external probe agencies without bringing this to the knowledge of state officials concerned".
Briefing the media after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Vandana Dadel said, "The cabinet secretariat and vigilance department have been made nodal departments to deal with such issues and legal actions in the matter." She said that according to the new SOP, if any official receives any notice or summons from any external probe agency, he or she will immediately inform the department head concerned.
"The nodal department will obtain legal advice accordingly. In light of the advice from the department, the official will provide necessary cooperation to the probe agency," Dadel said.
According to a cabinet note, it came to the notice of the state government in recent past that many summonses or notices were issued directly to officials asking them to appear before external probe agencies without providing information to the competent authority of the state government.
"In many cases, government documents/records are also demanded by an (external) investigating agency.
"In certain cases,… officials hand over the documents/records to the agency without bringing it to the notice of their senior officer/departmental head, which is not in accordance with the prevailing rules. This adversely affects the activities of the state government," the note read.
The ED has summoned the chief minister and several officers for questioning in connection with alleged corruption cases.
The central agency in its latest summons to Soren, who is also the executive president of the JMM, has asked him to inform the investigating officer about the date, venue, and time of his choice so that his statement could be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The probe pertains to a "huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia" in Jharkhand, according to the ED.
Soren has skipped six earlier summonses by ED accusing the union government of using central agencies to destabilise his democratically elected government. The seventh summons was issued in December last year.
The agency has also summoned Soren's press adviser Abhishek Prasad and Sahibganj Deputy Commissioner Ram Niwas Yadav for questioning in a money laundering case investigation linked to alleged illegal mining in the state, officials said.
While Prasad alias Pintu has been asked to depose at the federal agency's Ranchi office on January 16, Yadav and another person Binod Singh were instructed to do the same on January 11 and 15 respectively.
The sources said their statements will be recorded under the PMLA.
The ED had earlier raided their premises and those of Sahibganj Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajendra Dubey and several others on January 3.
The action was related to a case of "illegal stone mining prevalent in Sahibganj, having proceeds of crime of more than Rs 1,000 crore", the agency said.
