Illegal mining row in Himachal: FIR against stone crusher owned by BJP MLA Ashish Sharma

“Acting on the report, the police initiated an inquiry into the functioning of the crusher, which was registered in 2022 in the name of Ashish Sharma, who is now the BJP MLA from the Hamirpur Assembly constituency,” said Balbir Singh, Superintendent of Police, Hamirpur.

“During the inquiry, investigators scrutinised lease deeds, royalty receipts, electricity consumption records and the mandatory ‘W’ and ‘X’ form registers that document mineral movement,” he said.

Sources said officials found serious discrepancies suggesting deliberate record manipulation to facilitate illegal extraction. According to the police, the firm allegedly misused ‘W Forms’, which are strictly meant for transporting minerals from the lease site to the stone crusher, for direct commercial sale outside the plant. This irregularity reportedly allowed the illegal transportation of 28,180 metric tonnes of material.

Further checks revealed that between August and December 2022, the crusher unit operated without depositing the mandatory royalty with the Mining Department, during which it is estimated to have produced 17,572 metric tonnes of mineral. In total, the illegal extraction has been assessed at 45,752 metric tonnes, causing an estimated loss of Rs 36.60 lakh to the state exchequer.

The FIR was registered under sections 379 (theft), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Police officers said the investigation is progressing and will focus on identifying individual responsibility, lapses by officials, and any collusion that may have enabled the violations. They added that further action will be taken based on the findings.

Ashish Sharma among Independent MLAs who joined BJP

Sharma entered politics as an Independent MLA from Hamirpur, winning the 2022 Assembly election. Later, he resigned in March 2024 along with two other Independent MLAs, Hoshyar Singh Chambyal of Dehra and KL Thakur of Nalagarh. Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania accepted their resignations in June 2024.

Sharma and the other two joined the BJP and contested the bypolls on BJP tickets in July 2024. Only Sharma won the bypolls, defeating the Congress candidate Pushpinder Verma by a margin of 12,899 votes.