The Supreme Court has decided that on May 21, it will hear a plea by former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren for interim bail to campaign in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. Jharkhand is scheduled to go to the polls on May 20, May 25, and June 1.
Appearing before a Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for Mr. Soren, said that his client was willing to surrender on June 2.
Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, for the Directorate of Enforcement (ED), said that there was no question of granting interim bail for Mr. Soren, who was arrested in January, months before the election began, as part of the agency’s investigation into money laundering charges linked to a land grab case.
Similar to Kejriwal case
The relief sought by Mr. Soren is identical to the one given to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is also facing money laundering charges linked to the liquor policy case. Mr. Kejriwal was arrested on March 21, days after the Model Code of Conduct came into force, and was then granted interim bail by the same Bench of Justices Khanna and Datta on May 10, so that he could campaign for the Aam Aadmi Party in the general election. The top court had ordered him to surrender on June 2.
In Mr. Soren’s case, the Bench said that a relief of interim bail would require the former Jharkhand Chief Minister to prima facie satisfy the court that the land in question — which the ED says is the proceeds of the crime — does not belong to him.
“We have to be prima facie satisfied before giving you any interim relief,” Justice Khanna addressed Mr. Sibal.
Land ownership
Mr. Sibal challenged the ED to show proof that the land in question belonged to Mr. Soren. He said that all the ED had were statements to the extent that “some people” were saying “this is Mantri Ji’s land”.
“That is why we asked whether you [Mr. Soren] are in possession of the land. They have found a person on the land who says it is your land. There are boundary walls. There are photographs of the land connecting the land to Mantri Ji. As soon as probe began, somebody came up and said that the land is his...” Justice Khanna raised the points put forth by the prosecution against Mr. Soren.
Mr. Sibal said he was keen to address the court on these points. However, Mr. Raju said he would need time to prepare.
The court has listed the case for hearing before a Vacation Bench on May 21. The ED was given time till Monday to submit its reply to Mr. Soren’s plea for interim bail.
Judicial delays
In the previous hearing on May 13, Mr. Sibal had said that Mr. Soren’s rights were being trampled on. “The High Court had kept the pronouncement of the judgment pending for long. The judgment in my case against my arrest was reserved by the High Court in February. Finally, we had to appeal to the Supreme Court with a petition for interim bail, saying the High Court was not pronouncing its verdict,” Mr. Sibal had explained.
The High Court’s judgment, on May 3, had refused to quash the case against Mr. Soren, while observing that the former Chief Minister cannot wriggle out of the “mess” by invoking the spectre of political vendetta.
Mr. Soren was arrested on January 31 after he resigned as the Chief Minister, with the ED grilling him for seven hours before the arrest. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha party loyalist and State Transport Minister Champai Soren was named as his successor.
The ED is probing the alleged “huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores’‘.
