LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Ranchi, Aug.19: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today summoned Jharkhand Chief Minister (CM) Hemant Soren directing him to appear at its regional office at Hinoo on August 24.
This is the second time the ED has summoned the Jharkhand CM within a fortnight to interrogate him in the multi-crore land scam in Ranchi.
Earlier, the CM had been summoned on August 8.
However, the CM challenged the legality of the summons and did not turn up saying he was seeking legal opinion on this matter. He, in a letter to the ED, asked to withdraw the summons.
However, the ED was apparently not convinced with Soren’s stand and issued a second summons today.
Earlier on November 17 last year, the ED had questioned Soren for about 10 hours in an illegal mining case.
The situation arose after the ED started the probe into the land scam on the basis of the report of the then South Chotanagpur Commissioner Nitin Madan Kulkarni.
When the investigation in the land scam case started, the first raid was conducted in November 2022 at the places of businessmen Bishnu Agarwal, Amit Agarwal. For the second time, on April 13, the ED raided 21 places related to land business, including former DC Chhavi Ranjan of Ranchi, Manoj Kumar, Circle Officer of Bargain Zone, and a revenue employee Bhanu Pratap.
The ED had claimed that much important evidence had been found in the raid. During the raid, the ED had arrested seven land traders, including Bhanu Pratap, on the charge of keeping government documents in his house.
During the interrogation of these accused on remand, information was received about other people involved in tampering with the original documents of the land. After which the ED arrested Ranchi’s former DC Chhavi Ranjan, businessman Amit Agarwal, Bishnu Agarwal, Dilip Ghosh, Pradeep Bagchi and many others.
In this case, on April 24, the ED raided the premises of PPS Uday Shankar, who was posted in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat. The ED had received information that efforts were made to provide administrative help to land traders from this place.
