The Enforcement Directorate (ED) wants to interrogate Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the land buying and selling case. But, Hemant Soren is avoiding going to the ED office this time. He is afraid that he may be arrested. To avoid ED’s inquiry, he reached from Supreme Court to High Court. However, neither the Supreme Court nor the High Court gave him any relief. On the summons of ED, one will have to appear for questioning at the ED office in Ranchi. There was a lot of politics over the notices being repeatedly sent by ED to the elected Chief Minister. From Jharkhand to Delhi, the Central Government was cursed for this. Ultimately Hemant Soren allowed ED to come to the Chief Minister’s residence and interrogate him. After receiving the letter from the CM, on January 20, 2024, an ED team reached the CM residence on Kanke Road.
The matter is related to the purchase and sale of 8.50 acres of land.
After all, how did Hemant Soren get trapped in the case of illegal purchase and sale of land? The matter is related to the purchase and sale of 8.50 acres of land in Baritayatu area of Bargaini area of Ranchi. When ED started investigating this case and searched its documents, the documents related to this land were found on the mobile phone of Revenue Sub-Inspector Bhanu Pratap Prasad. Bhanu Pratap has been arrested for selling land by falsifying documents. On the basis of documents found in the mobile phone, ED started investigation of the land. ED also recorded the statement of the arrested revenue sub-inspector and the then zonal officer of Badgai zone.
Hemant Soren ignored ED summons seven times
After recording the statement of the CO, Chief Minister Hemant Soren was summoned by the Central Investigation Agency. ED asked Hemant Soren to come to the zonal office in Ranchi and give details of his assets. Hemant Soren refused to go to ED office. Not once or twice, but seven times he ignored the ED summons. He even once warned the ED that if the central agency did not withdraw its notice, he (Hemant Soren) would be forced to take legal action against it (ED). But, ED also remained firm on its stand.
See, when did ED send notice to Hemant Soren?
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8 August 2023 By issuing the first summons, ED called Hemant Soren for questioning on 14th August.
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19 August 2023 A second summons was issued to Hemant Soren and he was asked to come to the ED office on August 24 and give details of his assets.
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01 September 2023 By issuing a third summons, the Jharkhand CM was called to the ED office on September 9 with the details of his assets.
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17 September 2023 ED sent fourth summons to CM Hemant Soren on 23 September and called him for questioning on 23 September.
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26 September 2023 The ED issued the fifth summons asking him to come to the ED office on October 4 with the documents.
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11 December 2023 By sending the 6th summons, the Enforcement Directorate called Chief Minister Hemant Soren to the ED office for questioning on 12 December 2023.
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29 December 2023 ED wrote to Hemant Soren – Your statement has to be recorded, within two days you tell me, what should be the place.
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12 December 2024 ED wrote a letter to Hemant Soren saying that if you do not come, we will come. Consider this letter as the eighth summons. Jharkhand CM was given seven days’ time. It was said that if we come, it is your responsibility to maintain law and order.
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15 January 2024 On 20 January, Hemant Soren sent a letter to ED asking him to come to the CM residence on 20 January. After this the ED team reached CM residence and started interrogating him.
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25 January 2024 ED sent the ninth summons asking to inform the time and place for questioning between January 27 and 31.
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27 January 2024 Then a summon was sent, in which it was asked to give a suitable time for questioning between 29th and 31st January.
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29 January 2024 In Delhi, ED went to Hemant Soren’s official residence as well as Jharkhand Bhawan and Shibu Soren’s residence to interrogate him, but he could not be found.
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29 January 2024 An e-mail was sent from the CMO to the ED saying that they can come to the CM residence on January 31 at 1 pm to interrogate the CM.
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30 January 2024 After 2 pm, Hemant Soren presided over the meeting of ruling party MLAs at the CM residence. CMO gave this information on social media ‘X’.
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31 January 2024 According to the time received from the CMO, the ED team reached the Chief Minister’s residence after 1 o’clock. After completing the paperwork, the interrogation of Hemant Soren started. He was arrested in the night.
CM challenged ED’s rights in Jharkhand High Court
Even before this, Hemant Soren challenged the powers of ED by filing a writ petition in Jharkhand High Court on 24 September. The High Court rejected his petition and said that it was not worthy of hearing. Earlier, Hemant Soren had gone to the Supreme Court and requested the Supreme Court to stay the ED notice. He is being harassed by ED by repeatedly sending notices. The bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi rejected his petition and refused to stay the ED notice. However, the Supreme Court said that if you want relief, you can go to the High Court. Therefore he filed a writ petition in the High Court. On October 13, Hemant Soren’s petition was heard in the High Court and he got a shock here too. The High Court refused to give any relief to Hemant Soren. Even the Chief Justice said that this petition is not worthy of hearing.
ED arrested 13 in land buying and selling case
Hemant Soren kept avoiding going to the ED office every time on some pretext or the other. Sometimes in the name of petition in the court, sometimes in the name of attending a dinner hosted by the President. Let us tell you that so far 13 people have been arrested by ED in the case of buying and selling of land. It was during their interrogation and investigation of their cases that ED came to know about the benami property of CM Hemant Soren and his family members. After this a notice was issued to him.
ED had seized so many documents on April 13
ED has also given the grounds for summoning Hemant Soren. It has based it on the FIR lodged in the light of the raids conducted on April 13 and 26, 2023. During the raid on April 13, ED had seized land related documents kept in boxes from the house of revenue employee Bhanu Pratap. A case of tampering and forgery by cutting out the name of the real owner and writing the name of someone else came to light. Besides, there is a possibility of Hemant Soren being interrogated in the case of wrongful buying and selling of tribal land and illegal occupation.
Hemant Soren had warned ED of legal action
Hemant Soren first threatened ED that if the investigating agency did not withdraw the notice, he would take legal action. ED did not take his letter seriously and issued the next summons. After this, Hemant Soren went from the Supreme Court to the High Court, but he was disappointed everywhere. In the petition filed by Hemant Soren in the Supreme Court, he demanded cancellation of the ED notice issued under Sections 50 and 63 of the Money Laundering Act. He said that due to this the person always remains afraid that the ED can arrest him using the powers given in Section 19 of PMLA. Hemant Soren also said that Sections 50 and 63 violate the fundamental rights of the individual.
13 including IAS have been arrested in land buying and selling case
Let us tell you that 13 people including former Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi i.e. DC Chhavi Ranjan and big businessman Vishnu Aggarwal have been arrested in the case of illegal purchase and sale of land in Ranchi. Apart from Vishnu Aggarwal, the then DC of Ranchi Chhavi Ranjan, Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate director Dilip Ghosh, Rajesh Auto director Amit Aggarwal, revenue employee Bhanu Pratap Prasad, grandson of the fake owner of the land Rajesh Rai, power of attorney holder Bharat Prasad, Army. Pradeep Bagchi, the fake owner of the land occupied by him, Afsar Ali, the leader of the gang selling the land through fraud, Imtiaz Ahmed, Saddam Hussain, Talha Khan and Faiyaz Khan, members of the fraud gang, have been arrested.
ED claims- Benami property of Hemant Soren family detected
ED repeatedly asked Hemant Soren to present the details of his assets, but Hemant Soren did not go to the ED office. He wrote a letter to ED Assistant Director Devvrat Jha saying that he had provided the details of his and his family members’ assets to the ED only on November 30, 2022. On the other hand, ED says that recently many benami properties of Soren family have come to light. He has been summoned to get some information from him in this regard. On this, Hemant Soren has said that if documents have gone missing from the ED office, then get all the information from CBI. Jharkhand CM said that MP Nishikant Dubey had demanded investigation of the property of his (Soren) family from the Lokpal. CBI had collected information about his family’s property by conducting a wrong investigation. If ED wants, it can get all the documents from CBI.
Hemant Soren appeared before ED in Sahibganj illegal mining case
Let us tell you that in the illegal mining case in Sahibganj, checkbooks in his (Hemant Soren’s) name were found from the house of the MLA representative of Barhet MLA Hemant Soren. In this connection, ED had called the CM of Jharkhand for questioning. After several summons, when he reached the ED office in Hinu. On November 17, he was interrogated for about 10 hours. Even at that time, there was a lot of politics from Jharkhand to New Delhi on the ED notice. Hemant Soren is repeatedly saying that the Central Government is harassing him. With the help of central agencies, a conspiracy is being hatched to destabilize the elected government.
Hemant Soren had said in November 2022 – Attempt to defame me
In November 2022, Hemant Soren addressed the press and his workers at the CM residence before going to the ED office. Made serious allegations against the central government and central agencies. Called the allegations against him baseless. Said that the elected Chief Minister of a state is being called as if I am a criminal. All this is happening at the behest of the Centre. A young tribal has become the Chief Minister and Jharkhand is progressing, this is not being digested by BJP and its masters. That’s why efforts are being made to defame me. He also termed it as political vendetta.