Special Court reserves order in Hemant Soren case; ex-CM sent to one-day judicial custody

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren arrested by the ED on charges of money laundering and illegal possession of land.

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren will be taken to Hotwar Central Jail in Ranchi for a day as the PMLA Court has reserved its order on Enforcement Directorate (ED)‘s remand request. The Court will pronounce its order and Mr. Soren will be brought to the Court from jail on February 2.

Soon after he resigned as Chief Minister, Mr. Soren was arrested by the ED on Jan. 31. The agency had questioned him for over seven hours during the day.

The ED has claimed that a dozen land parcels in Ranchi, measuring about 8.5 acres in total, are in "illegal possession, occupation and use" of Mr. Soren and are proceeds of crime under the anti-money laundering law. The criminal case filed by the ED against the 48-year-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader emerges from a June 2023 ECIR following raids conducted against State government employee and Revenue Department Sub-Inspector Bhanu Pratap Prasad at various locations in the State.

The agency, as per official records, recovered 11 trunks holding voluminous property documents from Mr. Prasad's premises along with 17 original registers. Mr. Prasad was a custodian of many original registers of land records and their ownership details of the State, the ED claimed.

It alleged that Mr. Prasad was "involved in the corrupt practices which included falsification of original records and had been a party with several other persons in their activities linked to the acquisition of landed properties in a fraudulent manner". The ED shared this information with the Jharkhand government which registered a police FIR against Mr. Prasad at the Sadar police station in Ranchi on June 1, 2023. The central agency took cognisance of this FIR to file its ECIR on June 26, 2023.

Mr. Prasad, the ED claimed, was "actively involved in hatching conspiracies with other persons to acquire and conceal various properties in an illegal manner including the properties which are illegally acquired and possessed by Shri Hemant Soren." These details were also recovered from the mobile phone of Mr. Prasad, it said.

According to official documents, Mr. Soren was arrested by the ED at 10 pm on Wednesday from the Governor House. During his personal search, the former CM "refused to remove" a religious locket and ring he was wearing.