India News | ED Tells J'Khand HC Ex-CM Soren Instrumental in Acquiring Land Illegally

Ranchi, June 12 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday informed the Jharkhand High Court that former chief minister Hemant Soren was instrumental in illegally occupying land in Bargain in the capital.

Arguing for the ED, its counsel S V Raju said that Soren had acquired the land in 2009–10 and a boundary wall was constructed to secure its possession.

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Soren, who is also the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha executive president, had filed a petition before the high court on May 27, seeking bail in a money-laundering case linked to an alleged land scam. The court had asked ED to respond to the matter on June 12. The hearing will continue on Thursday.

The ED's counsel said the federal agency had also conducted independent surveys of the land and on questioning, the caretaker informed that the land belongs to Soren.

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Besides, the ED said it has also recovered several documents which show that land records were interpolated to favour Soren.

Supreme Court senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Monday had argued for granting bail to the former CM contending that the JMM leader has been falsely implicated in a criminal case by the ED.

Soren, who was arrested by the ED on January 31 in connection with the money-laundering case, had requested an early hearing from the high court.

Sibal had earlier argued that Soren has been wrongfully accused of usurping an 8.86-acre plot in Bargain, and that this act does not constitute an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, for which Soren has been jailed.

The ED has alleged that land documents were altered and that the original landowners were forcibly evicted by Soren.

Sibal countered that the original landowners never complained or approached authorities when their land was allegedly taken. He noted that this act of forcible eviction is said to have occurred in 2009–10, but the report was only made in 2023.

Sibal had argued that even if all allegations against Soren were true, it would be a civil matter of forcible eviction, not a criminal case.

He had suggested that the criminal case was motivated by an ulterior motive to keep Soren behind the bars. He further claimed that the ED tampered with evidence and created false documents to implicate Soren.

The original landowner, Raj Kumar Pahan, has already filed for restoration of the land in his name, which is being processed.

Sibal had pleaded that the JMM leader was a victim of political conspiracy and had been implicated without evidence.

On May 22, Soren failed to get relief from the Supreme Court, which criticised him for "suppressing material facts" in his plea against arrest in the money laundering case.

A vacation bench of justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma allowed Soren's counsel Sibal to withdraw the pleas for interim bail for Lok Sabha poll campaigning and against his arrest after the apex court indicated that it would dismiss them as the JMM leader had not approached the court with clean hands.

The Supreme Court noted that Soren did not inform it of the April 4 order of the special PMLA court taking cognizance of the prosecution complaint and that his regular bail petition, filed on April 15, was dismissed on May 13.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)