Hemant Soren:- Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Saturday filed a petition in the Jharkhand High Court challenging the summons sent to him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money laundering case. His lawyer gave this information. On September 18, the Supreme Court had refused to consider Soren’s plea against the summons issued by the ED in an alleged money laundering case. A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi had given liberty to Soren to approach the Jharkhand High Court for relief in the case. Soren’s lawyer Piyush Chitresh said that the Chief Minister has filed a petition in the High Court challenging the summons issued to him by the ED. The ED had summoned Soren to appear at the federal agency’s office in Ranchi on August 14 and record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Soren had also not appeared when called by the ED in the alleged defense land scam case citing pre-scheduled programmes. The ED had questioned Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Soren (48) for over nine hours on November 17 last year in a money laundering case related to alleged illegal mining in the state. The central agency is probing over a dozen land deals, including one related to defense land, in which a group of mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly colluded to create fake documents dating back to 1932. Was.
The ED has so far arrested several people in Jharkhand, including Soren’s political aide Pankaj Mishra. Soren was initially summoned by the ED on November 3, 2022, but he did not appear citing government commitments. The JMM leader had also challenged the Central Investigation Agency to arrest him and requested to postpone the summons for three weeks. The ruling JMM has alleged that the chief minister was being politically targeted while the Bharatiya Janata Party had last week said Soren should not be tried by any court given the “kind of corruption” he has done in the state. There will be no relief and they will ultimately have to face an Enforcement Directorate investigation. (Language)
