Former Jharkhand chief minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren was released from jail after he was granted bail by the high court in a money laundering case linked to a land scam.

The verdict follows the court's decision to reserve the order on June 13 regarding Soren's bail application.

The ruling was made by a single bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay. Representing Soren, Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora had claimed that the charges against him were politically motivated and baseless. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, also argued for Soren's bail, asserting that the ED falsely implicated him.

"Bail is granted. The court held that there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing an offence on bail," his counsel, Arunabh Chowdhury, told media persons.

Given there are no other cases against him at this time, Soren may be released soon. Bail was granted on payment of a bail bond of ₹ 50,000 and two sureties of the same amount each.

The Bench held: The overall conspectus of the case based on broad probabilities does not specifically or indirectly assign the petitioner to be involved in the acquisition and possession as well as concealment of 8.86 acres of land at Shanti Nagar, Baragain, Ranchi connected to the “proceeds of crime”. None of the registers/revenue records bare the imprint of the direct involvement of the petitioner in the acquisition and possession of the said land.

The claim of the Enforcement Directorate that its timely action had prevented the illegal acquisition of the land by forging and manipulating the records seems to be an ambiguous statement when considered in the backdrop of the allegation that the land was already acquired and possessed by the petitioner as per some of the statements recorded u/s 50 PMLA, 2002 and that too from the year 2010 onwards, it added.

The ED opposed the bail plea, accusing Soren of misusing his position as Chief Minister to unlawfully acquire 8.86 acres of land in Bargain Anchal, located in the state capital. The ED's counsel presented testimony from witnesses who reportedly confirmed Soren's involvement in the illegal transaction. Additionally, the agency alleged that Soren's media consultant, Abhishek Prasad, admitted under questioning that Soren directed him to alter official records to change the land's ownership details.

Soren, the executive president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on January 31 in connection with its investigation into the money laundering case. The 48-year-old politician has been lodged in Birsa Munda jail in Ranchi since then.

 "I was kept behind bars for 5 months...We are seeing how the judicial process is taking years not just days or months...Today, it is a message for the whole country that how a conspiracy was hatched against us...The fight we started and the resolutions we made, we will work to fulfil them," Soren told reporters after coming out of jail.

The ED has accused Soren of running a scheme to manipulate records, via fictitious transactions and forged documents, and acquire 8.86 acres of land in Ranchi worth crores.

The development comes as a shot in arm for Soren’s party, and the INDIA bloc of opposition parties. Soren was the second chief minister -- Arvind Kejriwal is the other -- from the front who was arrested by the federal agency barely months before the Lok Sabha elections.

While Kejriwal is still in jail, Soren walking out of jail on Friday is seen as a boost for the ruling JMM-Congress-RJD alliance in Jharkhand, which is headed for assembly elections later this year along with Maharashtra, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir.

Soren resigned as chief minister on January 31, minutes before he was arrested by the federal agency, and passed on the baton to Champai Soren. As he languished in jail, his party won three Lok Sabha seats this year, two more than its tally in 2019; its partner, the Congress, won two. The BJP-led NDA won nine of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state, three less than 2019. All the five seats won by the JMM-Congress combine in the state this time are reserved for scheduled tribes.