Hemant Soren granted bail in ED case
Hemant Soren granted bail in ED case
Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren was on Friday granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in an alleged money laundering case linked to illegal possession of 8.36 acres of land. Soren, who has no other cases pending against him, is likely to walk out of jail.
Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay granted bail to the former CM after hearing the matter for over a month.
Piyush Chitresh, associate counsel to Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan, told The Indian Express: “The bail has been granted with two sureties each of Rs 50,000. We are in the process of getting the release orders.”
The former CM was arrested on January 31 in the case, shortly after resigning from his post and appointing loyalist and state transport minister Champai Soren to fill his shoes.
The ED had been investigating various cases in Jharkhand, including the alleged illegal sale and purchase of an Army plot in Ranchi. It was during the investigation into this case that the name of a former revenue sub-inspector of Bargaain Circle Office, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, came up.
The ED claimed that Prasad, who was eventually arrested, was part of a syndicate involved in acquiring properties illegally, through force as well as by falsifying government records.
Several original land records were recovered from him, and his phone contained an image of an 8.36-acre land parcel which was allegedly in Soren’s illegal possession.
According to the ED, Soren is among the people Pratap “hatched conspiracies with” to take over properties. The agency alleged that details of the illegally acquired/possessed properties have been found on Pratap’s mobile phone.
The former Jharkhand CM has maintained the charges are false, saying that the land had been “wrongfully alleged to be owned” by him. He said the plot was actually ‘Bhuinhari’ land, which under the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act cannot be transferred to anyone.
Last month, the Jharkhand High Court had said that Soren cannot “wriggle out of the mess he created for himself” by citing political vendetta, and had dismissed his application challenging his summons and arrest by the ED.
Soren had told the court that his arrest was part of the BJP’s “game plan” of vendetta against leaders of the Opposition INDIA bloc in which he and his party are vocal participants.
Soren’s counsel, senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, had earlier said the ED is attempting a “fishing” inquiry which is impermissible under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
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