SC adjourns Hemant Soren’s bail plea to May 21

Former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren

The Supreme Court on May 17 adjourned former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren's plea challenging the state high court order refusing him bail. The JMM chief was arrested in January on charges of money laundering.

A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta adjourned his bail plea to May 21. The case will now be heard by a vacation bench.

On May 10, the apex court disposed of his plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Soren moved the top court after the Jharkhand High Court didn’t pass an order on his bail plea despite reserving the decision in February.  The HC passed its order on May 3, making the plea in SC infructuous.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief had in February challenged his arrest in the Supreme Court, which rejected his plea and asked him to approach the high court, saying it would not be appropriate to directly entertain a plea challenging an arrest by the ED.

Soren was arrested on January 31 after over seven hours of questioning on money laundering charges arising from an alleged land scam.

Before his arrest, Soren resigned as the chief minister and his senior party colleague, Champai Soren, took over from him.

Soren's arrest is linked to a "huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia" in Jharkhand, the ED has said. It has, so far, arrested 14 people in the case, including 2011-batch IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, who was the director of the state's social welfare department and Ranchi deputy commissioner.