Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has been granted bail by the High Court. “Bail is granted. The court held, prima facie, Hemant Soren is not guilty, and there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing an offence on bail,” informed Soren’s counsel Arunabh Chowdhury.
With no other cases against him at this time, Soren may be released soon. Bail was reportedly granted on payment of two sureties of ₹50,000 each.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on money laundering charges on January 31. The ED has accused him of running a scheme to manipulate records, via fictitious transactions and forged documents, to acquire 8.86 acres of land in Ranchi worth crores. Soren has repeatedly denied the charges against him.
The bail order today comes after setbacks last month. First, the Ranchi special court denied Soren bail. That was followed by the High Court rejecting a plea to quash his arrest, pointing to an “abundance of documents that lay foundation for the arrest and remand of petitioner.” Soren was also told he could not “wiggle out of the mess he created for himself.”
The Supreme Court refused interim bail, which was sought on grounds that Soren needed to campaign for his party and the Congress-led INDIA Opposition bloc in the Lok Sabha polls. In that hearing, the ED argued that Soren had tried to subvert the investigation by “misusing State machinery” and opposed his “special prayer” for interim bail to campaign in the Lok Sabha polls.
That setback meant Hemant Soren – unlike his Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, arrested by the ED in the alleged liquor policy scam but given interim bail by the top court – could not campaign. Kejriwal had been granted bail by the top court to campaign for the AAP.
The Jharkhand leader had to withdraw another Supreme Court plea challenging his arrest after tough questions over non-disclosure of facts; the focus was on not revealing that the special court, which hears money laundering cases, had taken cognisance of the complaint against him. This was after the Supreme Court issued a notice to the central agency and sought its response to an interim bail plea filed before it on grounds that the High Court was delaying delivery of its judgement.
Hemant Soren resigned as Chief Minister on January 31, hours after the ED began a marathon questioning session and then informed him he would be arrested. Soren, however, refused to accept the arrest memo till he had quit his post to avoid being the first sitting Chief Minister to be arrested.
