Naysa Shrivastava, Pune
On Monday, SC rejected the Enforcement Directorate’s plea challenging the Jharkhand High Court’s order of permitting bail to Hemant Soren, Chief Minister of Jharkhand in the case of money laundering connected to an alleged land scam. The High Court permitted bail to Soren by claiming that there was no evidence of his “direct involvement” in the scam. ED challenged the decision, “High Court’s order is illegal” ED told India Today.
In response to the plea, SC dismissed it and called it a “well-reasoned judgment”. The bench of justices including BR Gavai and KV Vishwanath confirmed that they are not interested in intervening in the impugned order. “It has given logical reasons why statements are contradictory and if we observe more carefully then ED might get in difficulty”. Court told India Today. S V Raju, Additional Solicitor General representing the central agency told Indian Express, “High Court should not disregard the statements recorded by it” and at the same time Justice Gavai said that the reasons are valid for disregarding the statement. Gavai also told Indian Express, “There is specific information regarding the records seized from Bhanu, there’s nothing implicating Soren.”
Hemant got bail on 28 June, from Birsa Munda jail, Ranchi and Champai Soren, former Chief Minister of Ranchi stepped down from the position and Hemant took it. Soren, leader of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was arrested on January 31 from Ranchi Raj Bhavan, by ED and the accusation against him was of involvement in a scheme for exploiting records and documents forgery. He also bought land of 8.86 in Ranch, illegally. He denied the accusations of ED and blamed Bharatiya Janata Party for putting false charges on him, to defame him but he became the CM of Jharkhand again on 4 July.
Many members of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha were arrested including IAS officer Chavvi Ranjan and Bhanu Pratap Prasad, over 25 people were in custody in connection with the case. Bhanu is a land revenue collector, he was allegedly involved in a land-grab syndicate which does not match the original land records and is considered as forged documents. He also allegedly had images in his phone of the land which is illegally owned by Soren.