Case registered against stone crusher owned by MLA

A criminal case has been registered against Mahadevi Stone Crusher owned by Ashish Sharma, MLA of Hamirpur constituency, at Sujanpur police station. As per the details, an FIR was registered against M/s Mahadevi Stone Crusher under FIR No. 77/25, invoking the sections of the Bhartiya Nayay Sanhita (BNS) 379 420, 468 and 120-B on December 4.

It is learnt that the MLA has secured interim bail in the case and the next hearing is on December 10.

It is alleged that the unit had done illegal mainlining and siphoned royalty worth over Rs 36.60 lakh. The allegations also involved misuse of ‘X’ and ‘W’ forms to sell the mined material. There are two types of mining permissions in the state. While in the first case, the mined material is extracted and sold directly to consumer without crushing, in the other the material is extracted, taken to crusher, crushed and sold.

It was alleged that the in two years (2022- 2023 and 2023 -2024) as much as 28,180 metric ton mining material was mined and transported in violation of norms. The police also alleged that in 2022, over 17,572 metric ton was produced and transported as per form ‘G’ but royalty was not submitted. It was also alleged that the crushing unit had led to total loss of Rs 36,60,160 to the state exchequer.

Balbir Singh Thakur, SP, said the probe had been initiated in the case. He added that sufficient documentary evidence was available.

Ashish Sharma, MLA, said the case registered against him by police was politically motivated and there was no wrongdoing. He said he would file a defamation case in the matter for maligning his reputation. “I would come clean out of all such fake and baseless cases”, he concluded.