Hemant Soren granted bail in land scam case
The High Court granted bail to former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in a land scam case. “Bail was granted. “The court held, prima facie, that Hemant Soren is not guilty, and there is no likelihood that the petitioner will commit an offence while on bail,” his advocate, Arunabh Chowdhury, told news agency PTI.
Hemant Soren may be released shortly, given that there are no other cases against him at the moment. Bail was granted upon payment of a ₹50,000 bond and two sureties of the same amount.
The Enforcement Directorate detained the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader on January 31 for money laundering. The ED has accused him of executing a scam to alter records, using bogus transactions and forged documents, in order to obtain 8.86 acres of land in Ranchi worth crores.
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In its order, the court said “…broad probabilities (of the case) do not specifically, or indirectly, assign the petitioner to be involved in the acquisition and possession, as well as concealment (of land)”.
Noting that “none of the revenue records bare imprint of direct involvement of petitioner in acquisition and possession of said land” , the judge ruled that the ED’s contention “seems to be ambiguous when considered against the backdrop of allegation the land was already acquired and possessed by petitioner… from year 2010 onwards”.
The court also reasoned that “there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing a similar nature of offence” and thus met the twin grounds for granting bail under the PMLA.
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Hemant Soren has denied charges time and again
Soren has constantly denied the charges against him and accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of orchestrating his arrest, which occurred just weeks before the Lok Sabha election, to undermine the opposition.
Earlier, the Ranchi special court had the bail to Soren.
Soren was also informed that he couldn’t “wiggle out of the mess he made for himself”.
Following that, the Supreme Court denied temporary release; this was sought on grounds Soren’s need to campaign for his party, the Congress-led INDIA opposition group, in the Lok Sabha elections.
