SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, May 3: The Jharkhand High Court today said that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) there is an abundance of documents that lay a foundation for the arrest and remand of former Chief Minister Hemant Soren to police and judicial custody.
Delivering judgement 63 days after it reserved its order on Soren’s petition filed to challenge his arrest in a money laundering case, a division bench of acting Chief Justice S Chandrashekhar and Justice Navneet Kumar observed that ‘like the last resort to a losing litigant, an anxious petitioner has raised the bogey of political vendetta.’
Notably, the ED arrested Soren on January 31 allegedly for possessing 8.5 acres of ‘bhuinhari’ land in Bariatu locality of the state capital.
‘ED has proceeded against Soren with a reason’
The court, in a 39-page judgement, said that the case set up by the ED against Soren is not based only on the statements of those who claimed themselves real owners of the properties in question. “Rather there is an abundance of documents that lay a foundation for the arrest and remand of the petitioner to police and judicial custody,” it added.
“At this stage, this is not possible to hold that the for no reason,” the court observed.
Rejecting Soren’s stand that there is no material even remotely suggesting his involvement in the commission of the offence, the court said, “this must be remembered that the only requirement in law is that the decision to arrest the accused should prima facie reflect the application of mind.”
Role of Bhanu Pratap Prasad
“The role of Bhanu Pratap Prasad who was posted at Bargai Circle Office as part of a land-grabbing syndicate came into the light in the course of a probe into the fraudulent acquisition of 4.55 acres of defense land.
“On February 9 2023, when an inquiry was conducted at the Bargai Circle Office it became clear that several persons were involved in making false deeds, falsification of government records and tampering with the original revenue records to facilitate the acquisition of landed properties in a fraudulent manner.”
“The ED has laid details of 12 properties which are inside the boundary of a big chunk of plot measuring about 8.5 acres.”
“The information shared by the ED on May 4 2023 with the Chief Secretary contained the details of Register-II, Volume-I, IV and V in which the properties acquired by Hemant Soren are entered and these records have been seized by the ED from the premises of Bhanu Pratap Prasad,” the court said.
The court said the former chief minister has not pleaded that the witnesses were forced or compelled to give their statement under section 50 of the PMLA.
‘Soren has not challenged ED’s evidence’
“This is also not the case of the petitioner that the materials produced by the ED are not real. The fabrication and falsification of the property deeds and revenue records are matters of record, and there is prima facie evidence of Soren’s association with Bhanu Pratap Prasad. At the relevant time, Soren was the Chief Minister and there was manipulation in registering the report in Sadar PS Case No. 272 of 2023,” the court said.
‘Soren has not denied recovery of huge cash’
“Soren has also not denied the recovery of huge cash from his Delhi residence and the excuse of the illness of his parents for keeping more than 36 lacs in cash prima facie looks untenable, the bench commented,” the court said.
“In this state of affairs, by raising a technical plea Soren cannot wriggle out of the mess he created for himself,” the court said.
“Lastly, there is no challenge by Soren that the grounds of arrest, memo of arrest and personal search memo were not duly furnished to him in writing and the compliances under the PMLA were not observed,” the court order concluded.
