Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Monday moved to the Supreme Court challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case. Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for Soren mentioned the appeal in front of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud citing urgency in view of Lok Sabha elections.
“Please allow Hemant Soren to campaign ahead of the May 13 polls in Jharkhand. His rights are being trampled upon in this fashion,” Sibal argued before the court.
The bench also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it would look into the request.
Jharkhand High Court had, on May 3, turned down the plea by the former chief minister challenging his arrest. According to a News18 report, the Jharkhand HC the former chief minister a “losing litigant” and “anxious petitioner” who, as a last resort to “wriggle out of the mess created by himself, used the bogey of political vendetta”.
Stating that the evidence and documents against Soren were not false, the court in the judgement said, “The recovery of huge cash from his Delhi residence is not denied by the petitioner and the excuse of the illness of his parents for keeping more than Rs 36 lakh in cash prima facie looks untenable. In this state of affairs, by raising a technical plea, the petitioner cannot wriggle out of the mess he created for himself. Like the last resort to a losing litigant, an anxious petitioner has raised the bogey of political vendetta.”
Soren was arrested on January 31 after being grilled by the ED for seven hours in the case. He is at present in judicial custody and lodged at the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi.
ED is probing the alleged “huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores”.
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