The Jharkhand High Court has granted bail to former Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Friday in an alleged money laundering case involving the illegal possession of 8.36 acres of land.
Soren was arrested on January 31 after resigning as Jharkhand chief minister, with state transport minister Champai Soren named as his successor. He had filed a fresh application in the Jharkhand High Court seeking regular bail last month urging for an immediate hearing on the matter.The case originated with the arrest of Bhanu Pratap Prasad, a land revenue inspector from the Badhgaain area, in 2023. Prasad was allegedly part of a land-grab syndicate that falsified original land records. Several original land records were recovered from Prasad, along with an image on his phone showing an 8.36-acre land parcel allegedly in Soren’s illegal possession.Soren’s arrest followed his failure to respond to eight out of ten Enforcement Directorate (ED) summonses. He had been questioned three times by the agencies, starting in November 2021 in connection with an alleged illegal mining case.The second and third summons, on January 20 and 31 respectively, were related to alleged proceeds of crime from the sale and purchase of Army land in Ranchi, a case in which IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan is also an accused. The ED investigation uncovered the illegal sale and purchase of another 8-acre land parcel in Ranchi’s Bargai area. A detailed order is awaited.Notably, the Supreme Court had earlier refused to consider Soren’s plea for interim bail, after which his plea for bail before the Apex Court was dismissed as withdrawn.[Story to be updated]
