Ranchi: A hearing was held in the special court of ACB on Tuesday on the discharge petition of the then Agriculture Minister and present Labour Planning Minister Satyanand Bhokta, accused in the 46.10 crore seed scam case. During the hearing, Minister Satyanand Bhokta again presented evidence in the court in defense of the allegations leveled against him.
The minister presented the documents obtained from RTI in court through his advocate. After this, the court fixed the date of July 22 for the next hearing on the discharge petition. The case of seed scam is between 2003 and 2005.
The ACB had found in its investigation that the scam was worth Rs 46.10 crore. In the year 2009, an FIR was registered against the accused in the monitoring station.
In which the then Agriculture Minister Satyanand Bhokta, former Minister Nalin Soren, the then Agriculture Secretary V Jayaram and Nistar Minj, and others were made accused. At present, the charges against the accused are yet to be framed in court. But before framing the charges, a discharge petition has been filed by the accused to get them freed from the charges.