Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the land scam case, approached the Supreme Court on Monday seeking urgent hearing of his petition challenging the state High Court order dismissing his plea against arrest. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for Soren urged Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud who was presiding over a three-judge bench, to consider listing the Special Leave Petition on an early date given that elections will start in the state on May 13. Pointing out that the HC had dismissed his plea on May 3, the senior counsel said he had thereafter filed the SLP overnight. Seeking urgent hearing, he added, it’s “very unfortunate that rights are being trampled in this fashion”. On being told that a pending petition in the matter is listed for hearing before a bench presided by Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Tuesday, the CJI asked Sibal to send an email communication as per the Standard Operating Procedure and that he will look into it. Dismissing his petition challenging arrest, the HC had said that Soren cannot “wriggle out of the mess he created for himself” by citing political vendetta. Soren had told the court that his arrest was part of the BJP’s “game plan” of vendetta against leaders of the opposition (INDIA bloc) in which he and his party are vocal participants. The HC said, “there is prima facie evidence of the petitioner’s association with Bhanu Pratap Prasad. At the relevant time, the petitioner was CM and there was manipulation in registering the report in Sadar Police Station… The recovery of huge cash from his Delhi residence is not denied… and the excuse of the illness of his parents for keeping more than Rs 36 lakh in cash prima facie looks untenable. In this state of affairs, by raising a technical plea, the petitioner cannot wriggle out of the mess he created for himself. Like the last resort to a losing litigant, an anxious petitioner has raised the bogey of political vendetta.”
