Senior Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal argued before the Jharkhand High Court on Monday for bail for former Chief Minister Hemant Soren. The High Court directed the ED to respond and scheduled the next hearing for June 12.
NEW DELHI: On 10th June: Senior Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal argued before the Jharkhand High Court on Monday for bail for former Chief Minister Hemant Soren, asserting that the JMM leader has been falsely implicated in a criminal case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Soren, who also serves as the working president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, filed a bail petition in the high court on May 27. The ED is scheduled to respond on June 12, the next hearing date.
Soren, arrested by the ED on January 31 in connection with a money-laundering case related to an alleged land scam, sought an expedited hearing.
Sibal contended that
Soren is wrongly accused of seizing an 8.86-acre plot in Bargain, Ranchi, which does not fall under the offenses outlined in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, under which Soren is detained. The ED alleges that land documents were falsified and the original landowners were forcibly removed by Soren.
Sibal argued that the
Original landowners never complained or sought assistance from authorities when their land was supposedly taken. He noted that the alleged forced eviction took place in 2009-10, but the complaint was only filed in 2023.
READ ALSO: Supreme Court: Hemant Soren Withdraws Plea Against HC Order
Sibal stated that even if the allegations were accurate, they would constitute a civil case of forced eviction rather than a criminal offense.
He suggested that the criminal case was driven by ulterior motives to keep Soren incarcerated, alleging that the ED tampered with evidence and fabricated documents to implicate Soren. The original landowner, Raj Kumar Pahan, has already applied to have the land restored to his name, and this process is ongoing.
Newly elected Gandeya MLA and Soren’s wife, Kalpana, were present in the courtroom during the cross-examination, which lasted from 4 pm to 6 pm.
The High Court directed the ED to respond and scheduled the next hearing for June 12.
On May 28, the High Court had instructed the ED to reply to Soren’s bail plea.
Previously, appearing before a bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay, Sibal had argued that Soren was the target of a political conspiracy and was implicated without evidence.
READ ALSO: BREAKING | Hemant Soren’s Bail Plea Rejected in Jharkhand Court
On May 22, the Supreme Court denied Soren relief, criticizing him for “suppressing important facts” in his petition against his arrest in the money laundering case.
A vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma permitted Sibal to withdraw Soren’s plea for interim bail for the Lok Sabha election campaign and against his arrest after indicating that it would likely reject them.
The court noted that Soren had not approached it with clean hands, as he failed to disclose the April 4 order of the special PMLA court taking cognizance of the prosecution’s complaint and the rejection of his regular bail plea on May 13.
