SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Sept 15: The Supreme Court today deferred the hearing on Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s petition challenging the summons issued by the ED for questioning in the multi-crore land scam in Ranchi.
This case was listed for hearing in the court of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi on Friday. However, the court kept the next hearing of the case on Monday due to ill health of senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who argued on behalf of Hemant Soren. The court was requested to postpone the hearing of the case for a week.
In fact, the chief minister has approached the Supreme Court against the summons of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), saying that it is wrong for the ED to summon him in the land scam.
Soren, in his petition, has stated that the summons is a clear misuse of the Section 50 of the PMLA, which directly infringes upon his right of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution. “The draconian provisions of PMLA are being misused without giving any information to the person being summoned and the purpose and realm of enquiry,” he has stated in his petition.
Section 50 empowers the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to summon an accused and record a statement. The statement is admissible as evidence in court.
Soren has challenged Section 50 on at least four grounds.
First, the jurisdiction of the ED is limited to investigating the offence of money laundering and not to start an enquiry into assets which he had acquired more than 15 years ago and which have duly reported to and accepted by the appropriate authorities as licit assets.
Second, not informing the person being summoned as to in which capacity he is being summoned is violative of the Fundamental Rights and scheme of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
“In his case, there does not exist any valid or tenable reason to repeatedly summon him to give evidence on his assets and the issuance of the impugned Summons is in violation and gross abuse of the PMLA,” Soren has stated.
Third, the PMLA is essentially a criminal law, therefore, the person investigating the commission of an offense under the same would, essentially be police officers. Hence, the proceedings under Section 50 of the PMLA should be considered as an investigation and the safeguards provided under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the Constitution of India should most definitely be made available to the person summoned under PMLA.
And last, the Legislature while enacting Indian Evidence Act, 1873, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 incorporated safeguards to ensure that the statements made during the course of investigation would not be an admissible piece of evidence in the trial of the case, whereas the said protection is not available under the provisions of the PMLA, Soren has stated.
Notably, Soren has skipped three summons issued by the ED, so far in the land scam.
He had skipped the first summons for questioning in connection with an ongoing money laundering case related to fraudulent sale of land parcels in the state capital on August 14.
In a letter to the ED, he had sought its withdrawal questioning its legality.
The chief minister had also reportedly questioned the choice of date, August 14, for scheduling the questioning despite the common knowledge about the involvement of the office of the chief minister in Independence Day celebrations a day later.
Again, he skipped the second summons, saying he has challenged it in the Supreme Court and so, the ED should wait till the apex court’s order.
However, the ED issued the third summons and asked him to appear for questioning on September 9. The chief minister, however, decided to attend the G20 dinner hosted by President Droupadi Murmu and skipped it again.
Now, all eyes are on the ED’s next move.
The ED has been probing two major cases of money laundering in Jharkhand. The first case is related to illegal mining in Sahibganj. The CM was questioned in connection with mining case on November 17 last year.
The second case is related to alleged land scam in the state capital. 13 people, including IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan and two businessmen, Amit Agarwal of Kolkata and Bishnu Agarwal, who owns shopping malls in Ranchi, have already been arrested in connection with the alleged land scam.
