Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren agrees to appear before ED for questioning
Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren will be questioned in an alleged money-laundering case linked to a land scam. The ED had issued seven summons to Soren but he had refused to be questioned.
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Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. (File)Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has agreed to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in a money-laundering case linked to an alleged land scam, sources in the agency confirmed. The questioning is likely to take place on January 20 at Soren’s Secretariat Office in Kanke Road, Ranchi.
This is the eighth summons issued to Soren in the case. Soren had ignored the previous summons and had refused to be questioned citing excesses.
The case in question is related to the alleged illegal purchase of a plot of land, which sources in the ED said, is between 8-13 acres. ED sources said that Soren would be questioned on his alleged ownership of this land and the following “proceeds of crime”.
Sources in the Soren government, however, said that the case is not clear and the details of his assets are already public.
“In the eighth summons, we wrote that the PMLA [Prevention of Money Laundering Act] has been passed by the Parliament and that nobody is above the law. We wrote that since he has been disobeying the law for a long time…the agency will question you as per the law between January 16-20th,” an ED source said.
Sources said that Soren in his response earlier had hit out at the ED for selectively leaking his responses and alleged that it was a sort of “media trial”.
The ED has been investigating various cases in Jharkhand. One of them is related to the alleged illegal stone mining in Sahibganj district. Earlier this month, the ED had raised the total amount of illegal stone mining in Sahibganj to Rs 1,250 crore from the earlier stated amount of Rs 1,000 crore, a claim Soren had refuted.
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