SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Sept 23: Chief Minister Hemant Soren today took refuge in the Jharkhand High Court instead of going to the ED office to answer queries on the multi-crore land scam in Ranchi.
Soren challenged the summons (It was the fourth one), pleading the high court to stop it on the grounds that it was politically motivated. He has also challenged the powers of ED in his petition.
The chief minister later also communicated to the ED that he has moved the high court challenging the legality of summons. “So, the ED should wait till the high court takes a decision over his petition,” he added in his letter.
Soren moved the high court after the Supreme Court refused to entertain his petition and asked him to approach the high court.
The Apex court had sought to know why he had not approached the Jharkhand High Court which is the jurisdictional HC.
“You go to the High Court. We will allow you to withdraw,” the court had said.
Notably, the ED had sent a summons to Soren to depose at the agency’s office in Ranchi first on August 14 and later to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
So far, Soren has skipped four summons citing various reasons.
He had been interrogated for over nine hours by the ED on November 17 last year in connection with another money-laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining in the state.
The central probe agency is investigating more than a dozen land deals, including one related to defence land, wherein a group of mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly connived to forge deeds and documents of as long back as 1932.
The ED has arrested several people so far in the state, including Soren’s political aide Pankaj Mishra.
Now, all eyes are on the next move of the ED.
