New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on an interim bail plea of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren in a money laundering case.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta issued notice to the ED and sought its response by May 6.The bench said the Jharkhand High Court may pronounce its verdict on Soren’s plea challenging his arrest in the case. The order was reserved on February 28.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Arunabh Chowdhury, appearing for Soren, said they want interim bail in the matter. Sibal referred to sections under which Soren was booked and said there was nothing against him. The bench said that the allegation relates to a plot of 8.5 acre land.
When the bench was dictating the order, Sibal tried to suggest a date for the next hearing in the matter. To this, Justice Khanna said, “What is this? Give us some discretion.” In this case, 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.”