Jharkhand High Court on Thursday granted bail to Jama MlA Sita Soren, accused in horse trading case during Rajya Sabha elections of 2012, asking her to surrender her passport to the lower court.
Soren had been lodged in Birsa Munda Central Jail for over six months after her surrender before the special CBI court on February 25 this year. Soren’s close associate Rajendra Mandal was also granted bail by the court of Justice HC Mishra.
“The court, today granted her bail putting some conditions before her like surrendering her passport to the court, will not tamper the evidences against her and will also furnish two bail bonds of `50,000 each,” said her counsel Chandrajeet Mukherjee.
According to Mukherjee, the bail was granted on the grounds that the other accused persons have already been granted bail by the Supreme Court in the case, and there were no direct evidences found against her and no transaction of money was done in her account. Moreover, she had not voted for RK Agrawal in the elections, Mukherjee added.
Soren is facing CBI probe in the horse-trading case and has also been charge-sheeted in the case along with five others, including independent candidates in 2012 Rajya Sabha elections — RK Agrawal, Pawan Kumar Dhoot, Sunil Maheswari, her father BM Majhi and her former aide Rajendra Mandal in June last year.
According to the CBI, Sita Soren allegedly received huge amount of cash from one of the Independent candidates RK Agrawal in lieu of casting her vote in his favour during the Rajya Sabha election-2012.
Soren has been charged under Sections13 (2) and 13(1) (D) of Prevention of Corruption Act as well as Sections 120B and 171E of IPC.
Besides that, Soren has also been made a named accused in an abduction case of her former aide Vikas Pandey, who happens to be a prime witness in the horse-trading case.
Soren, after remaining in the hiding for over a couple of months, dramatically made a surprise appearance in the Jharkhand Assembly to cast her vote during the trust vote moved by her brother-in-law and Chief Minister Hemant Soren on July 18 last year.
She had managed to evade her arrest for over six months after an arrest warrant was issued by the designated CBI court on August 5 last year.
The CBI on February 19 had already attached her property after the Supreme Court questioned the role of the investigating agency in not apprehending her.
The Election Commission of India, following the seizure of `2.15 crore from a vehicle in Ranchi on March 30, 2012, had scrapped the polls.
The money and the vehicle allegedly belonged to a close relative of Agrawal, an industrialist who was also in the fray as an Independent in the countermanded RS polls. The polls were later held afresh on May 3 that year.