Supreme Court to hear former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren plea challenging High Court order on April 1

The Supreme Court will hear former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s plea challenging the High Court’s decision on April 1. The Jharkhand High Court refused to grant him permission to attend the Assembly session. 

A bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice K V Viswanathan will hear the plea of the former Chief Minister, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on January 31 in a money laundering case.

The former Chief Minister had sought permission from the Jharkhand High Court to attend the Budget session of the Assembly that commenced on February 23 and concluded on March 2. Earlier on February 28, the high court dismissed his plea. Furthermore, a special court in Ranchi on February 22 had denied Soren permission to participate in the Assembly session.

The Jharkhand High Court had earlier allowed Hemant Soren, the ruling JMM’s executive president, to take part in the trust vote in the Assembly on February 5. Former CM Hemant Soren is currently lodged in the Birsa Munda Central Jail under judicial custody.

Reportedly, the allegations of money laundering against the JMM leader pertain to the alleged illegal possession of certain immovable assets and his purported links with members of the land mafia. The probe relates to a huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia in the state, according to ED.

The investigation agency has so far arrested several people in the case, including 2011-batch IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, who served as the director of the state’s Social Welfare Department and deputy commissioner of Ranchi. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating the alleged huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged or bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores.