In a significant legal reprieve for Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, the Jharkhand High Court allowed him to skip personal appearance before the MP-MLA Court in a case concerning alleged non-compliance with Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons.
Justice Anil Chaudhary examined the matter in detail and closed the petition after hearing arguments. The development came after the High Court, on November 25, withdrew an earlier interim protection granted on December 4, 2024, which had spared Soren from attending the Ranchi MP/MLA Court.
Once the interim relief was lifted, the trial court was instructed to resume proceedings as usual. This fresh order has brought considerable relief to the Chief Minister, who will no longer be required to be physically present during court hearings.
His legal team—senior advocate Arunav Chaudhary and advocate Dipankar Rai—represented him during the proceedings. Soren had initially approached the High Court after a lower court refused his plea seeking exemption from personal appearance. Challenging that rejection, he urged the High Court to drop the case altogether.
Though the High Court temporarily stayed the lower court’s directive for personal attendance, that stay was cancelled on November 25 before the matter was finally decided this Wednesday.
The ED had lodged a complaint against Soren on February 20, accusing him of ignoring multiple summons in a money-laundering probe linked to a land scam. The case was first taken up by the Chief Judicial Magistrate before being transferred to the MP-MLA Court on June 3.
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The court, while taking cognisance on March 4, 2025, observed that there was prima facie evidence of Soren failing to comply with the summons. According to the ED, the Chief Minister was issued 10 summons in the case, but he responded only to two—on January 20 and January 31.
After skipping the agency’s call for the eighth time, he finally agreed to appear for questioning at his Ranchi residence on January 20, where he was interrogated for over seven hours.
Subsequently, on January 27, the ED wrote to him again, asking him to finalise a date—January 29 or 31—for further questioning. The agency warned that if he did not respond, officials would arrive at his official residence. Soren eventually agreed to the January 31 examination, following which he was arrested the same day. The arrest came after the Chief Minister reportedly went missing from his Delhi residence on January 29, remaining untraceable for nearly 40 hours before surfacing in Ranchi, where the ED took him into custody on January 31, 2024.
Also Read: HC allows trial in summons case against Hemant Soren
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