Jharkhand High Court Grants Bail to Ex-CM Hemant Soren in Money Laundering Case
Ranchi, 28th June 2024: On Friday, the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to former Chief Minister Hemant Soren in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam (Hemant Soren v. Directorate of Enforcement).
Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay approved Soren’s bail application today, reversing an earlier decision denying interim bail for attending his uncle’s funeral due to lack of exceptional circumstances.
Soren resigned as Chief Minister of Jharkhand on January 31 following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a case involving alleged illegal transfer of land ownership by criminal elements in the state.
Denying the money laundering allegations, Soren released a video prior to his arrest claiming innocence and alleging conspiracy based on falsified documents.
A plea challenging his arrest was dismissed by a Division Bench of the High Court on May 3, after the Supreme Court directed Soren to approach the Jharkhand High Court rather than directly intervening.
In its decision on the bail application, the High Court concluded that there are grounds to believe Soren is not guilty of the alleged offence and that he is unlikely to commit a similar offence while on bail, meeting the criteria under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The court’s order stated, “There is ‘reason to believe’ that the petitioner is not guilty of the offence … on an overall conspectus of the case there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing a similar nature of offence.”
Representing Hemant Soren were Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Meenakshi Arora, Anurabh Chodhary, and Advocates Aprajita Jomowal, Abhir Datt, Piyush Chitresh, and Shray Mishra. The Enforcement Directorate was represented by Additional Solicitor General of India SV Raju, along with Advocates Zoheb Hossain, Amit Kumar Das, Saurav Kumar, Rishabh Dubey, Shivan U Sahay, and Sankalp Goswami.
