SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today sent a third summons to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, apparently rejecting the latter’s plea to wait till the Supreme Court decides his petition filed to challenge the agency order against him.
The ED has asked him to appear at the agency’s Ranchi zonal office on September 9 for questioning in the multi-crore land scam in Ranchi.
The ED had first summoned Soren on August 14 but the latter did not reach the ED office and, instead, sent a letter through a staff of the chief minister’s office (CMO) describing the summons as politically motivated. He also asked the ED to withdraw the summons, as he has given all the information related to his and his family’s property to the Lokpal, CBI and the ED.
“If the ED wants, it can take documents from these agencies,” he had stated in his letter.
However, the ED summoned Soren again and asked him to appear on August 24. The CM this time sent another letter to the assistant director of the ED saying he has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against the summons. The CM had said not to interrogate him until the decision came from the Supreme Court.
However, the ED served the third summons as it found that the chief minister was showing no urgency to get his petition heard by the Apex court.
Earlier, the ED had interrogated the chief minister in November last year linking him to alleged illegal mining in Sahibganj.
The ED had started the investigation into the land scam on the basis of a report of the then Commissioner of South Chhotanagpur, Nitin Madan Kulkarni.
It raided the premises of businessmen Vishnu Agarwal and Amit Agarwal in November last year. For the second time, on April 13, the ED raided 21 places related to land business, including former Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan, Manoj Kumar, Circle Officer of Bargain, and revenue employee Bhanu Pratap. The ED had claimed that many important evidences have been found in the raid. During the raid, the ED had arrested seven land traders, including employee Bhanu Pratap, on the charge of keeping government documents in the 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, Vishnu Agarwal, Dilip Ghosh, Pradeep Bagchi and many others. In this case, on April 24, the ED raided the premises of 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 the land traders from this place.
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