Former Chief Minister Hemant Soren was discussing plans to construct a banquet hall on 8.5 acres of land in the heart of Ranchi which he had allegedly grabbed from its original tribal owners.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) disclosed this before the Special PMLA court in Ranchi in its remand petition. The court extended the police remand of Soren for another three days.
The ED had arrested Soren on January 31st in the land scam case after several hours of questioning. The ED has based its evidence on a WhatsApp chat of Soren with his friend Binod Kumar Singh. The ED had seized two mobile phones of Binod containing conversations.
The scrutiny of the WhatsApp chat between Binod and Soren has led to the identification of a plan/map of the proposed banquet.
Binod on April 6th, 2021 shared this plan with Soren. “The location of the proposed banquet mentioned on the said plan matches with the said 8.5 acres of land which is illegally acquired and possessed by Shri Hemant Soren.
A survey under section 16 of the PML Act, 2002 has also been conducted on 10th February in the presence of the officials of the Circle Office…Binod Singh, Bhanu Pratap Prasad and it has been corroborated that the locality of the banquet as per the plan shared by Binod and the area of 8.5 acres of land acquired by Soren, under investigation are the same further, there is no such big parcel of land available in the said locality where such big structure can be planned for construction,” the ED claimed.
Meanwhile, senior Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal today alleged the ED for probing such matters against Soren which have no connection with the original case of land scam. Sibal said this while arguing on behalf of Soren before the two-judge bench at Jharkhand High Court.
“The ED arrested a sitting CM,” said Sibal while adding “We are discussing matters of liberty here. Terming the situation deeply disturbing he said that the ED was now investigating issues not related to the original case.
The Bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Arun Kumar Rai, is scheduled to resume hearing the matter on February 27. The ED requested the court to grant additional time to submit a reply.
However, Sibal said that the ED should be granted less than two weeks to file its reply. He emphasized that this is a criminal case and pointed out that the ED has already filed responses on merits.
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