The Supreme Court heard the Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s petition seeking cancellation of the bail granted to Chief Minister Hemant Soren by the High Court. Chief Minister Hemant got a big relief in the hearing. The apex court has rejected the ED's petition.
The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the order of the Jharkhand High Court in the money laundering case related to the land scam. It is worth noting that the matter was heard in a division bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice KV Vishwanathan.
The Supreme Court dismissed the SLP saying that the lower court should continue its hearing without being influenced by the comments made by the High Court while granting bail to Hemant Soren. Earlier, the Jharkhand High Court, while granting bail to Soren, had said, looking at the case, there is no possibility of the petitioner committing a crime of similar nature.
Opposing Soren's bail plea, the ED had alleged that he had misused his position of Chief Minister to illegally acquire 8.86 acres of land in the Badgam zone in the state capital. The ED had claimed that during the investigation, Soren's media advisor Abhishek Prasad had admitted that the former chief minister had instructed him to manipulate official data to change the ownership of the said plot. The ED had said, when the plot was being encroached, its real owner Rajkumar Pahan tried to lodge a complaint, but no action was ever taken on it.
"We find a very well-reasoned judgement has been rendered by the single judge (of the high court). We don't want to observe anything more... if we observe, you (ED) might be in difficulty," remarked the bench, indicating satisfaction with the high court’s rationale and a reluctance to delve further into the matter.
Soren's lawyer had claimed that Soren was falsely implicated in the case by the central agency. The ED had maintained that it had detailed statements indicating Soren's involvement, with Raju asserting the presence of such evidence during the hearing.
Earlier, five months after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case linked to a probe into a land scam, JMM leader and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren stepped out of the Birsa Munda Jail in Ranchi on June 28 last following grant of bail by the Jharkhand High Court.
The single-judge bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay, while granting bail, said the court’s findings satisfy the condition that “there exist reasons to believe” that Soren is “not guilty” of the PMLA offence he has been accused of.