JMM leader Hemant Soren on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court challenging his arrest in a money laundering case and said the Jharkhand High Court had reserved order on his plea in the last week of February and till date has not pronounced it.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chairperson was arrested by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in an alleged land scam on January 31.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned Soren’s plea for an urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna. Sibal told the bench that the Jharkhand High Court had reserved the order on Soren’s plea challenging his arrest by the Directorate of Enforcement in the last week of February, 2024, but the judgment has not been delivered yet.
As Sibal sought an urgent hearing of Soren’s plea on the grounds of the ongoing Lok Sabha poll and also that the election will be over and he will remain inside the jail, Justice Khanna said that the Chief Justice secretariat would take a call and asked Sibal to inform it once.
Soren in his plea before the High Court had claimed that his arrest was unwarranted and his remand in the matter was arbitrary and illegal.
The probe pertains to huge amounts of the alleged proceeds of crime generated by forging official records, showing ‘fake sellers’ and purchasers to acquire huge parcels of land worth crores.