Bail for Soren after five months, High Court says reasons to believe not guilty

The bench also said the ED claim “that its timely action had prevented the illegal acquisition of the land by forging and manipulating the records seems to be an ambiguous statement”.

It heard Soren’s bail plea in a case of alleged illegal ownership and possession of 8.86 acres of land in the Bargain area of Ranchi. This, according to the ED, was linked to proceeds of crime in a PMLA investigation into a syndicate involved in acquiring land illegally.

The genesis of the case was the alleged illegal sale and purchase of 4.55 acres of Army land in Ranchi. The investigation led the ED to Bhanu Pratap Prasad, a revenue sub-inspector of the Bargain Circle Office, who was allegedly part of a syndicate falsifying land records. Several original registers were found in Prasad’s possession following which he was arrested.

The ED said Prasad’s phone data was extracted and several chats related to cash transactions, illegal benefits to others in acquiring land were identified. It pointed to “one image” of handwritten notes containing a list of land parcels which were “illegally acquired and in possession of Soren”.

The ED said: “Hemant Soren has directly indulged in the process connected with acquisition, possession and the use of proceeds of crime… (and is) knowingly a party with Bhanu Pratap Prasad… as such he (Soren) is guilty of the offence of money laundering.” It also said later that it had seized a drawing of a plan to construct a banquet hall on the land.

Justice Mukhopadhyay, in his order, said: “The present case in the perspective of the legal pronouncements… is manifest with circumstantial evidence and, according to the ED, the chain is complete, thereby foisting the role of the petitioner in the acquisition and possession of 8.86 acres of land… It is pertinent to note that in the numerous registers and revenue records recovered from the premises of Bhanu Pratap Prasad, the name of the petitioner or his family members does not figure.”

Relying on statements recorded by the ED, the bench said it was aware of the fact that meticulously delving into such evidence was the domain of the trial court and only a “fleeting reference” had been made of the statements of the relevant persons. “However, the same does not put an embargo upon the Court to disregard such statements in its totality particularly in a situation when the plea of bail of an accused is being considered. However, the contours of such statements can be taken into consideration in order to ascertain as to whether ‘reason to believe’  that the petitioner is not guilty is fulfilled as enshrined in Section 45 PMLA.”

It said when the land in question cannot be sold or purchased under the tenancy law, how could people like Ashok Jaiswal, Shashi Bhushan Singh and Bishnu Kumar Bhagat, in their statements to the ED, claim to have purchased the land in 1985.

“It is indeed surprising as to how these persons could purchase the land when admittedly it is a ‘Bakast Bhuinhari’ land which is non-transferrable in terms of the CNT Act (Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act). The verification of the land ostensibly done at the behest of the petitioner is traced back to Abhishek alias Pintu, the press advisor, and whose initiation of such verification ultimately reached Bhanu Pratap Prasad through various intermediaries, which is apparent from the statements… the petitioner had acquired and possessed the land comprising 8.86 acres in the year 2010 and the boundary wall was also constructed and it seems that only during the tenure of Prasad, there was a necessity to verify the land in question which seems to be farfetched and with an intent to prosecute the petitioner (Soren),” said the court.

The ED had said that Soren and others had forcibly got people evicted in  2009-10 and complaints made were not entertained by the police.

“There was no reason for the purported oustees from the land in question not to have approached the authorities for redressal of their grievance if at all the petitioner had acquired and possessed the said land when the petitioner was not in power,” it said.

“The claim of the Enforcement Directorate that its timely action had prevented the illegal acquisition of the land by forging and manipulating the records seems to be an ambiguous statement when considered in the backdrop of the allegation that the land was already acquired and possessed by the petitioner as per some of the statements recorded u/s 50 PMLA, 2002 and that too from the year 2010 onwards,” the bench said.

It said the consequence of the findings recorded by the court satisfies the condition to the effect that there is “reason to believe” that the petitioner is not guilty of the offence as alleged.

Arrested on January 31, Soren had challenged the summons and his arrest. A High Court division bench dismissed the plea, saying Soren cannot “wriggle out of the mess he created for himself” by citing political vendetta.

Soren then moved the Supreme Court but did not get any relief. Subsequently, he filed for regular bail in the Ranchi trial court but his petition was dismissed.