Soren allowed to file nomination

The CMM today ordered that Soren be taken to Patna by air on June 1, where he will be brought before the returning officer of the Secretariat of Bihar. The judge also ordered that Soren be brought back to Delhi the same day and will pay for his travel expenses.

The former JMM MP was remanded to police custody for a week on May 22. Rajya Sabha candidates can file their nomination papers between May 30 and June 4.Soren had yesterday asked the court to allow him to go to Bihar to file his papers. The CBI todayopposed the application on the grounds that the investigating officer needs the total remand period for interrogations and also to corroborate the evidence.

However, the CMM said: quot;CBI has been granted police custody remand for sufficient time. In case the accused is not allowed to file nomination before June 4 i.e. the period during which he is in police custody, the accused will be deprived of his democratic rights to contest the election.quot;On May 21 the CBI had also submitted a status report to the High Court on their probe into Jha8217;s abduction. The investigating agency alleged that Jha might have been abducted and killed as he had quot;sufficient knowledgequot; about the MPs bribery deal. Jha dispappeared on May 22, 1994, much before the CBI began investigating the Rs 8.7 crore JMM MPs bribery case in which Soren and 19 others are accused.

A division bench comprising Justice Devinder Gupta and N.G. Nandi has given the CBI till August 24 to complete the probe.

KRISHNA KUMAR8217;S BAIL PLEA REJECTED: Thebail plea of former minister of state for Defence and Petroleum S Krishna Kumar was today rejected by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate ACMM Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, who said that she was not inclined to grant bail as Kumar quot;was in a position to tamper with evidencequot;.

Enforcement Directorate counsel Baldev Malik had levelled four allegations against Kumar: That the Kumar family received remittances worth Rs 1,10,78,735 from UAE between 1991-94. That US 60,000 was spent on Kumar8217;s son Adarsh8217;s education at Georgetown University, USA. That Kumar acquired 60,000 dirhams in UAE during an official visit. And that Kumar instructed some people in UK to transfer US 1,30,000 to his sister in Dubai and US 14,000 to his son in USA.

While urging the court to grant Kumar bail, his counsel Dinesh Mathur said, quot;Let them show the remittances were prohibited or that they were not converted to Indian rupees and not shown in his income tax returns. They were normal bank transfers 8230; there was nothing illegalabout them.quot;