Ranchi:

Ex-Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has been granted bail by the High Court. “Bail is granted. The court held, prima facie, Hemant Soren is not guilty, and there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing an offence on bail,” Mr Soren’s counsel Arunabh Chowdhury, told news agency PTI.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on January 31 on money laundering charges. The ED has accused him of running a scheme to manipulate records, via fictitious transactions and forged documents, and acquire 8.86 acres of land in Ranchi worth crores.

The bail order today comes after a twin setback last month.

First, the Ranchi special court denied Mr Soren bail.

Then, in the Supreme Court, the Jharkhand leader was forced to withdraw an interim bail plea after tough questions over non-disclosure of facts; the focus was on Mr Soren not revealing the special court – which hears cases related to money laundering – had taken cognisance of the complaint against him.

READ | No Interim Bail Yet For Hemant Soren. He Cited Kejriwal’s Example

There was also confusion over a prior bail plea – dismissed – in the High Court, which then pointed to an “abundance of documents that lay foundation for the arrest and remand of petitioner”.

NDTV Explains | Hemant Soren’s 2 Bail Pleas And A Rap By Supreme Court

This was after the Supreme Court issued a notice to the central agency and sought its response to an interim bail plea filed before it on grounds the High Court was delaying delivery of its judgement.

The Supreme Court setback meant Mr Soren – unlike Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, arrested by the ED in the alleged liquor policy scam – could not campaign for his party, and the Congress-led INDIA opposition bloc, in the April-June Lok Sabha election.

Mr Kejriwal had been granted bail by the top court to campaign for the AAP.

READ | 9 Acre Illegal Land, BMW Car: What Report On Soren’s Claims

Hemant Soren resigned as Chief Minister on January 31, hours after the ED began a marathon questioning session and then informed him he would be arrested.

READ | Soren Refused To Sign Arrest Memo Until He Resigned: Sources

Mr Soren, however, refused to accept the arrest memo till he had quit his post, in order to avoid being the first sitting Chief Minister to be arrested.

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Ranchi:

The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday stayed the proceedings against Chief Minister Hemant Soren at a court in Jamshedpur, which was hearing a case registered in 2014, accusing him of model code of conduct violation.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi said that no coercive steps can be taken against Mr Soren, directing the state government to file a reply in the matter.

Mr Soren had challenged in the high court the proceedings pending against him at the Jamshedpur court, arising out of a case registered in the Adityapur police station during the 2014 assembly elections.

The high court will again hear the matter after six weeks.

Mr Soren has been accused of violating the model code of conduct as he campaigned beyond the stipulated time for the candidate of his party, the JMM.

The high court had in 2022 quashed another similar case against him. In that case, Mr Soren was accused of wearing a sash with the JMM logo while going to cast his vote during the 2019 assembly polls.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ranchi:

Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Saturday filed a petition in the Jharkhand High Court challenging issuance of summons to him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a case of alleged money laundering, his counsel said. The Supreme Court on September 18 had refused to entertain Soren’s plea against the ED’s summons in a case of alleged money laundering. A bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi granted Soren the liberty to approach the Jharkhand High Court for relief in the matter.

Soren filed the petition in the high court challenging the issuance of summons to him by the ED, Soren’s counsel Piyush Chitresh said.

The ED had sent a summons to Soren to depose at the federal agency’s office in Ranchi on August 14 and later to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Soren had also skipped the ED’s summons in an alleged defence land scam case citing pre-scheduled events.

The 48-year-old Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader was interrogated for over nine hours by the ED on November 17 last year in connection with another money-laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining in the state.

The central probe agency is investigating more than a dozen land deals, including one related to defence land, wherein a group of mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly connived to forge deeds and documents of as long back as 1932.

The ED has arrested several people so far in the state, including Soren’s political aide Pankaj Mishra.

Soren was initially summoned by the ED on November 3, 2022, but he did not appear citing official engagements. He had even dared the central probe agency to arrest him and then sought a three-week deferment of the summons.

While the ruling JMM has alleged that the CM is being made a political victim, the BJP last week said with the “kind of corruption” he has committed in the state, Soren will not get any relief from any court and he will have to eventually face an Enforcement Directorate probe.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)