The Jharkhand High Court granted a reprieve to former MLA Mamta Devi on Tuesday by staying her 2016 criminal conviction, thereby enabling her to participate in the upcoming assembly elections. The stay, ordered by Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi, suspends the previous sentence from a Ramgarh court which, in December 2022, had sentenced Devi and several others to five years of rigorous imprisonment.
The case stemmed from an incident where Devi was accused of inciting a mob at Integrate Power Limited in Gola, Ramgarh district, leading to a violent protest over land acquisition disputes. The agitation escalated when protestors allegedly fired shots and police retaliated, resulting in two fatalities.
Mamta Devi, a Congress leader, has been out on bail and challenged her conviction in the high court, asserting her innocence and the political context of her charges. The 2016 protest was reportedly motivated by grievances concerning inadequate compensation for land appropriated by the industrial unit, which was established in 2014 to generate 63 MW of energy in its first phase.
According to the FIR lodged against her, Devi led 160 villagers in a violent demonstration against the company. The protestors are said to have disrupted the plant’s water supply by blocking the Senegraha River and damaging its pump house, causing a halt in production. The confrontation with law enforcement reportedly resulted in injuries to five policemen and a magistrate, escalating to a point where police used force to quell the unrest.
