Money laundering case: SC rejects ED's plea challenging Hemant Soren's bail

The Supreme Court on Monday, 29 July, dismissed a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) challenging a Jharkhand High Court order granting bail to chief minister Hemant Soren in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam.

A bench of justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan said the high court's 28 June order was "very well reasoned".

"We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order," the bench said.

Soren, the executive president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), had resigned as chief minister shortly before the ED arrested him on 31 January in the case. After coming out of jail on bail in the case, he returned as the chief minister of Jharkhand on 4 July.

Opposing Soren's bail plea in the high court, the ED had alleged that he misused his position as the chief minister to "unlawfully" acquire 8.86 acres of land in the Bargain area in the state capital Ranchi.

Soren's lawyer had contended that he was falsely implicated in the criminal case by the central agency.

The ED had claimed that during the probe, Soren's media consultant Abhishek Prasad admitted that the JMM leader had instructed him to manipulate official records to change the ownership details of the plot.

The agency had also claimed that the original owner of the land, Raj Kumar Pahan, had tried to lodge a complaint about his land being usurped but it was never acted upon.

Soren was summoned multiple times by the ED before he was questioned at his residence and subsequently arrested on 31 January.