Politics
Former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren Released on Bail in Land Scam Case
Former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren Released on Bail in Land Scam Case
Hemant Soren, a leader of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and a former chief minister of Jharkhand, was freed from prison after the high court granted him bail in a money laundering case involving a land scam. “I was imprisoned for five months…It is becoming evident that the legal procedure takes years, rather than just a few days or months.Today’s message is intended for the entire nation, explaining how a plot was developed against us.We will strive to carry out the resolutions we made and the fight we initiated,” Soren told reporters, .
Two weeks after the court had deferred its decision on the plea, Soren was granted bail in the case. Soren was granted bail on a ₹50,000 bail bond and two sureties of the same amount by a single bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay. The court determined that the former chief minister is not guilty of the crime prima facie, Soren’s attorney informed.
“The court has held that prima facie he is not guilty of the offence and there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing an offence when on bail,” Arunabh Chowdhury, a senior attorney In conjunction with its probe into the money laundering case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) detained Soren, the executive president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), on January 31. Since then, the 48-year-old politician has been detained in Ranchi’s Birsa Munda jail.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), represented by SV Raju, objected to the bail request during the Friday session. He claimed that Soren is a powerful individual and had previously attempted to defend himself by utilizing the state missionary. “He might attempt to obstruct the investigation by abusing the state apparatus if bail is granted.”
According to Raju, Soren had a proposal to build a banquet hall on the property in Bargain, Jharkhand, and his friend Vinod Singh, an architect, had emailed him a map of the plan via mobile. In his statement, he acknowledged that Singh had identified the land at Bargain during the survey and that the chief minister’s office had given him instructions to share the land’s data.
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Meenakshi Arora, who represented Soren, and senior Supreme Court attorney Kapil Sibal said that there was a “political vendetta” case rather than one involving money laundering. “By abusing the ED, the central government is pursuing this maliciously.”
