Jharkhand high court ordered former CM Hemant Soren’s release on bail after 149 days in custody, observing that “none of the registers/revenue records” cited by ED in its land scam and money laundering probe “bear imprint of the direct involvement of the petitioner”.
“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,” the single-judge bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay said.
Soren, who had resigned as CM hours before his Jan 31 arrest to pave the way for Champai Soren to take over, walked out of Ranchi’s Birsa Munda jail to chants of “jail ka tala toot gaya, Hemant Soren chhoot gaya” from a crowd of supporters.
In his first remarks after his release, he said, “A story was concocted to keep me inside jail for five months. The entire country knows why I was imprisoned. The Delhi chief minister (Arvind Kejriwal) is in jail... At times I get worried at the way politicians, chief ministers, ministers, social workers, writers and journalists are being imprisoned in recent times in an effort to muffle their voices.”
ED has alleged that Soren misused his position as chief minister to “unlawfully” acquire the land in Baragain. It said witnesses it had examined alleged Soren’s involvement. Additional solicitor general S V Raju, representing ED, said Soren’s media consultant Abhishek Prasad had informed the agency that the ex-CM had instructed him to influence circle office employees of Baragain into altering official documents to change the nature and ownership of the land in the revenue records. He also mentioned that ED seized from Vinod Kumar, an aide of Soren, a construction plan for a banquet hall on the disputed land. The location and dimension of the land matches the 8.86-acre plot in Badgain, the additional solicitor general said.
In the courtroom, Soren’s counsel and Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal accused ED of tampering with evidence and producing false documents to frame his client in the land case. “The original landowner, Raj Kumar Pahan, filed for restoration of the land in his name and this has already been processed,” he said.
Justice Mukhopadhyay, who completed hearing on Soren’s bail plea on June 12 and reserved his order, said there was no reason for the alleged oustees not to have approached the authorities for redress if Soren acquired and possessed the land when he was not in govt.
