New Delhi: The Supreme Court told former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Friday that it needs to prima facie satisfy itself before granting interim bail to him in a money-laundering case linked to an alleged land scam for campaigning in the Lok Sabha polls.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file its reply by May 20 on the question of granting interim bail to Soren and a short response to his plea challenging his arrest in the case.
“Before granting interim bail, we need to satisfy ourselves. Let the ED file its reply on the question of interim bail. We will take up the matter next week. This is the shortest time we can give,” the bench said and listed the matter before a vacation bench on May 21.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing in the court on behalf of Soren, said if granted interim bail, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader will surrender on June 2. “There is no material against me in the case. Elections will be over, if not granted interim bail,” Sibal said.Sibal and senior advocate Arunabh Chowdhury, also appearing for Soren in the matter, said the JMM leader is not in possession of the land in question in the case and has nothing to do with it.
Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing in the court on behalf of the ED, said Soren was arrested long ago and he has not even challenged the dismissal of his regular bail application.
Raju sought time for filing a reply on behalf of the probe agency and claimed that the former chief minister is directly involved in the case.
“Let him (Raju) file all the documents, I can demonstrate in five minutes that the petitioner has nothing to do with the said land,” Sibal said.
Justice Khanna told Sibal that there are some materials that are being relied upon by the probe agency -- that a person is staying in the land in question, a boundary wall has been constructed on the land and the ED has annexed photographs of it, there are pictures of file noting and statements of the said person residing in the land.
“There is one more circumstantial evidence which is being relied upon by the probe agency that after the investigation started in the case, another person went and claimed to be the original owner of the land. What do you have to say on these materials?” the bench asked Sibal.