Supreme Court to hear Hemant Soren’s plea against his arrest tomorrow

Soren had filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Wednesday evening prior to his arrest. In that plea, he sought protection from arrest on the grounds that ED’s actions were “illegal and vitiated by political considerations”

New Delhi: The Supreme Court agreed to hear on Friday a plea filed by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief Hemant Soren, challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on money laundering allegations minutes after he resigned as chief minister of the state on Wednesday.

Hemant Soren submitted his resignation as chief minster of Jharkhand to Governor C P Radhakrishnan on Wednesday (Twitter/@jhar_governor)

Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud allowed the urgent listing of Soren’s petition after senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the matter, arguing it is a case that will seriously impact the polity in India, requiring the highest court of the land to step in.

“This court will have to set out the contours of Section 19 in the PMLA. How can a man be arrested like this? All of those in the opposition will be arrested before the general election. This will seriously impact the polity,” Sibal told the CJI-led bench that also comprised justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) prescribes that a person may be arrested based on material in the possession of ED which gives the agency reason to believe that the person being arrested has been guilty of an offence punishable under the Act.

The ED, represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta and additional solicitor general SV Raju, opposed Soren’s plea, pointing out that the outgoing chief minister has already moved the Jharkhand high court against his arrest.

“Thousands of people are arrested every day. Not everyone can afford to ask for a hearing from the Supreme Court...he has already gone to the high court, which took it at 10.30 in the morning and has now fixed it for tomorrow at their request,” Mehta told the CJI.

Responding, Sibal said that Soren would withdraw his petition from the high court because he thinks only the Supreme Court ought to address “something as serious as this”. Adding that Soren wanted the high court to hear his petition on Wednesday night itself, Sibal undertook before the top court that the petition in the high court would be withdrawn during the day.

“It’s a very serious matter”, said Sibal. This prompted ASG Raju to retort: “These are very serious allegations too.”

To this, Sibal claimed that Soren was arrested at 5 pm on Wednesday although the ED’s arrest memo showed his arrest at 10 pm. S-G Mehta replied that Soren left the place of arrest on his own.

Singhvi added that the arrest was made at 10pm after Soren’s legal team sent an email at 9pm on Wednesday to the ED that the case was listed for mentioning before the court of the CJI.

CJI Chandrachud, however, said that the court would not comment on anything at this stage. “It’s (petition) not even on board, so we won’t say anything...We are not passing any order except that we will list it tomorrow,” said the CJI.

Soren had filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Wednesday evening prior to his arrest. In that plea, he sought protection from arrest on the grounds that ED’s actions were “illegal and vitiated by political considerations”.

Moving a fresh application in the petition mentioned above, Soren on Thursday urged the bench to declare his arrest unconstitutional for being a brazen abuse of power by the ED.

“The petitioner was taken in illegal custody by ED from the premises of the Governor House. The arrest of the petitioner is illegal and malafide and without jurisdiction. The impugned action of ED is at the behest of the Central Government to topple the democratically elected government in the State of Jharkhand,” Soren’s plea stated.

The JMM chief alleged that the agency is trying to make a fishing and roving enquiry for political gain at the dictates of the central government.

Seeking his release, Soren claimed that there was no predicate (foundational) offence in the case that could empower ED to register a separate case and therefore, the entire money laundering probe was without jurisdiction.

Soren was arrested on Wednesday by the ED which claimed it has evidence that the JMM chief is the key beneficiary in alleged land-related irregularities in Ranchi, where a network of brokers and businessmen were allegedly working over the years to create fake deeds of landed parcels by forging records in the registrar offices and further selling them off.

Anticipating the sitting CM’s arrest, the state’s ruling alliance on Wednesday evening picked trusted aide and sitting minister Champai Soren as its next leader and said he enjoyed a comfortable majority.

On a tense day in Ranchi, with prohibitory orders clamped across large swathes of the state capital, Soren’s questioning began at 1.15pm on Wednesday at his residence, with the presence of the ruling party legislators. The questioning lasted for seven hours.

In the span of a dramatic few hours on Wednesday evening, Soren drove to Raj Bhavan and resigned even as 47 lawmakers backing the government followed him in three buses to meet Jharkhand Governor C P Radhakrishnan.

At around 10pm, Soren returned to his residence and from there he was taken to the ED office in Ranchi, where the 48-year-old leader was arrested in connection with the agency’s probe into the alleged land scam. Soren and the JMM have repeatedly denied the allegations and called them politically motivated, saying that the details of his assets are public.

Raj Bhavan later released a photo of Soren submitting his resignation to the governor, accompanied by Champai Soren, Left lawmaker Vinod Singh, Congress leader Pradeep Yadav, minister Alamgir Alam, and Rashtriya Janata Dal legislator Satyanand Bhokta. “We have 47 MLAs and we should be allowed to form the government. The governor said that he will check our papers and call us,” said Alam on Wednesday.

In the 81-member assembly, the ruling alliance that includes the JMM, Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) has 48 seats while the National Democratic Alliance has 32. One seat is vacant. Soren is the first former CM arrested by the ED.

The trouble began for him in August last year when the ED sought to question him. The leader did not show up and skipped as many as six summons issued one after the other, before finally agreeing to be questioned on January 20 this year.

Dramatic scenes unfolded in Delhi and Ranchi over the last three days, after ED swooped in on Soren’s residence at Shanti Niketan in Delhi and even sent a team to the airport but failed to locate him.

The agency sleuths were stationed there till at least 10pm on Monday and allegedly seized about ₹36 lakh in cash from his Delhi residence, a BMW SUV, and some documents. Hemant later said none of this belonged to him and registered a case against ED.

The developments prompted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to allege that Hemant was absconding in fear. However, Hemant, who had landed in Delhi on Friday and was expected to fly out in a chartered plane, drove 1,300km to Ranchi overnight and showed up in the city on Tuesday.

Amit Kumar Agarwal, a Kolkata-based businessman arrested by the ED on June 7 last year is key to Hemant’s arrest as he is suspected to be the handler of tainted funds of several politicians including the former Jharkhand CM, as alleged in a petition filed in the Jharkhand high court in 2021 by a lawyer, Rajeev Kumar.

ED has already filed a charge sheet in the alleged land scam on June 12, 2023, naming Agarwal, arrested Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) Chhavi Ranjan and eight other individuals, Dilip Kumar Ghosh (a close aide of Agarwal), Pradip Bagchi, Afshar Ali (alleged kingpin who created fake deeds on landed properties), Mohammad Saddam Hussain, Imtiaz Ahmad, Talha Khan, Faiyaz Ahmed, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, and three companies allegedly linked to Agarwal – Jagatbandhu Tea Estates Pvt Ltd, Rajesh Auto Merchandise Pvt Ltd and Aurora Studio Pvt Ltd.

The alleged scam pertains to usurping prime landed parcels including a 4.55-acre defence land at Morabadi Mouza at Ranchi, and a land parcel of 7.6 acres at Hehal, Ranchi – both valued at over ₹74 crore at the current market price. Besides, several other land parcels by the accused persons making fake deeds using manufactured identities and falsifying original land records at circle offices and Registrar of Assurances (RoA), Kolkata and circle offices in Jharkhand, according to the ED charge sheet, which has been seen by HT.

Overall, ED has recovered documents related to at least 27 properties of which alleged fake deeds were created by the accused people.