Jharkhand HC grants bail to former CM Hemant Soren in land scam case
Hemant Soren has been in jail since January 31. The ED had filed a charge sheet against five people, including Soren, on March 30
The Jharkhand high court on Friday granted bail to former chief minister Hemant Soren in a money laundering case linked to a land scam, two weeks after reserving its order on June 13 on his bail plea.
“The court granted the bail on two sureties of ₹50,000 each. We are planning to ensure that my client gets released by today evening,” Soren’s advocate Piyush Chitresh said.
SV Raju, representing the Enforcement Directorate (ED), had objected to the bail plea stating that Soren is an influential person and had earlier tried to protect himself by using the state missionary. “If granted bail, he may try to obstruct the investigation by misusing the state machinery.”
Raju submitted that Soren had a plan to build a banquet hall on the land located at Bargain in Jharkhand and his architect friend Vinod Singh sent its map to him through mobile. He also submitted that during the survey, Singh identified the land at Bargain and admitted in his statement that he provided the details of the land on instructions from the chief minister’s office.
Senior Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal and Meenakshi Arora, who also represented Soren, said that there was no case of money laundering, but one of ‘political vendetta’. “This is a malicious prosecution by the central government by misusing the ED.”
The detailed order is yet to be made available.
Hemant Soren has been in jail since January 31. The ED had filed a charge sheet against five people, including Soren, on March 30. Apart from this, a supplementary charge sheet against 10 accused, including JMM leader Antu Tirkey, was also filed before the court.