It more or less looks like a ‘who blinks first’ game between Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as Soren skipped the sixth summon of the agency. Today he was supposed to appear before the zonal office of the ED in Ranchi to record his statement in a land scam case. In the letter addressed to the ED, Soren sought to know in what capacity the ED summoned him, as an accused or to support the investigation.
Soren left for his home borough Dumka to attend the official programme while the ED officials kept waiting for him.
ED on Sunday had issued a sixth summons to Soren in a case said to be related to an alleged grab of 8.46 acres of tribal land in Ranchi. However, the ED insiders maintained that they wanted CM to explain the sources of his properties.
Soren has fought a protracted legal battle to avoid being questioned by the agency in this case, which the ED is investigating independently. Soren appeared before the agency only once in last year for his questioning in Rs. 1000 Crore illegal stone mining scam centred in Sahebganj district.
The ED alleged Soren was the direct beneficiary of the stone mining scam. The agency arrested and charge sheeted his representative Pankaj Mishra besides power broker Prem Prakash. The agency also named friend and businessman Amit Agrawal as a key conspirator of the scam.
But later on, when the ED summoned him in the land scam case he skipped all summons issued to him on different dates namely on August 14th and 28th, Sept 9th and 23rd, Oct 10th and December 12th
The present case is among some of the land scam cases including the Indian Army land scam which the ED is investigating. During the investigation of the Indian Army land scam case about the fraudulent sale and purchase of a costly parcel of land of the Indian Army and other private land, the ED had raided the premises of the then Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan, revenue official Bhanu Pratap Prasad and others besides land brokers.
Over the decade, Ranchi has emerged as the centre of organised land grabs and scams by influential persons. Many victims whose lands were grabbed have appeared before the ED and lodged their complaints.
A group of victims alleged before the ED that Soren grabbed their land measuring 8.46 acres and located at Bariatu locality in Ranchi, the capital town of Jharkhand. They said that goons threatened them if they raised their voice.
During a subsequent raid, the ED seized many official documents from the residence of Bhanu Pratap Prasad, including those of the said land under question. The ED stumbled upon electronic evidence suggesting that senior revenue official Manoj Kumar had directed circle officer Bhanu Pratap Prasad to conduct a survey and verification of this land.
“This parcel of land was allegedly grabbed in 2010. Rajiv Arun Ekka was the Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi. All rightful owners of the land were threatened. The land was grabbed, and a boundary wall was erected to build a farmhouse. ED conducted the survey and spot verification. The caretaker and local people said that the land is owned by Hemant Soren. The ED persuaded Ranchi police to lodge an FIR against Bhanu Pratap Prasad for keeping official records in his private possession and forging documents to commit scams,” well-placed sources said. The ED started an investigation and issued a notice to Soren.
In the statement given before the agency, Manoj Kumar reportedly said that he was instructed by Uday Shankar, posted in the CM secretariate, to get the land above measured and surveyed. Kumar accordingly passed this instruction to Bhanu Pratap Prasad.
Manoj Kumar, in his statement, accepted that the land belongs to ‘Boss’, and Uday Shankar instructed him over the phone to conduct verification of this land. Uday Shankar is a private assistant to Abhishek Prasad alias Pintu, media advisor of Chief Minister Soren. The documents in the possession of the ‘News Arena India’ contain statements of the accused and witnesses mentioning that land is under illegal possession of Soren.
Under the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, this land falls under the ‘non-saleable’ and ‘non-transferable’ category. The land is divided into 12 plots and is said to be in the possession of Chief Minister Hemant Soren as benami property.
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