jharkhand-hc-seeks-response-from-ed-in-hemant-soren-arrest-case

The Jharkhand High Court on Monday asked the Enforcement Directorate to file a reply to the Interlocutory Application (IA) filed by former Chief Minister Hemant Soren against his arrest by Friday, February 09. The court fixed the next hearing of the case on February 12.

Earlier Soren, terming his arrest by ED arbitrary and illegal, had approached the Supreme Court of India, where a three-judge bench had denied his hearing his petition and had asked him to approach the Jharkhand High Court first.

Hearing the plea of Soren on Monday the bench of Acting Chief Justice S Chandrashekhar and Justice Anubha Rawat asked for ED’s reply to Soren’s IA. The ED counsel sought a week to file a reply, to which the court asked the ED to file its reply by February 09. The court also fixed the next hearing of the case on February 12.

Meanwhile, ED is said to have approached the Jharkhand High Court against the FIR registered against its officers at the ST/SC police station in Ranchi. Former CM Hemant Soren had on January 31 lodged a complaint at ST/ST police station in Ranchi against senior officers of ED saying that the Central investigating agency had raided his Delhi residence to malign his image and the image of the tribal community as a whole.

The FIR was lodged against four ED officers namely, Kapil Raj, Devvrat Jha, Anupam Kumar and Aman Patel. Apart from this, a case was also registered against unknown officials under the SC-ST Act.

Soren had alleged that all these ED officials had conducted a search operation in Jharkhand Bhawan in Delhi and 5/1 Shanti Niketan in New Delhi to harass him and his entire community and to tarnish his image.