JMM leader Hemant Soren refused to receive arrest order: ED

Ranchi/New Delhi: JMM leader Hemant Soren was informed about his arrest at about 5 pm last evening but he was “reluctant” to receive the order as he first wanted to submit his resignation from the chief minister’s post, the Enforcement Directorate claimed on Thursday.

It also alleged that a dozen land parcels in Ranchi measuring about 8.5 acres in total are in “illegal possession, occupation and use” of the JMM leader and are proceeds of crime under the anti-money laundering law.

“He (Soren) was informed about his arrest at around 5 pm. However, he was reluctant to receive the orders before he tendered his resignation from the post of chief minister to the Hon’ble Governor, Jharkhand,” the central agency informed a special PMLA court while seeking his custody. The agency said in its arrest order that Soren was allowed to inform his wife Kalpana Soren about his arrest at 5 pm.

The court on Thursday sent Soren to judicial custody for a day. The ED had sought a 10-day custody.

The agency alleged, in the remand note accessed by PTI, that Soren left for the Governor House (Raj Bhavan) without consent and without completing the ongoing proceedings.”

“The written grounds of arrest could be served to him at 10 pm,” the ED told the court.

During his personal search, the former CM “refused to remove” a religious locket and ring he was wearing.

News TV channels played visuals of two minibuses entering the CM’s official residence at Kanke Road on Wednesday and later Soren and his MLAs reaching the Raj Bhavan.

Soren was arrested by the ED on Wednesday at 10 pm from the Raj Bhavan after he resigned as the CM. The agency had questioned him for over seven hours during the day. The JMM leader filed a plea before the Supreme Court in Delhi on Thursday challenging his arrest. The criminal case filed by the federal agency against the 48-year-Jharkhand Mukfti Morcha (JMM) leader emerges from a June 2023 ECIR (ED term for FIR) following raids in April conducted against state government employee and revenue department Sub-Inspector Bhanu Pratap Prasad at various locations in the state.

The agency, according to official records, recovered 11 trunks holding voluminous property documents from Prasad’s premises along with 17 original registers. Prasad was a custodian of many original registers of land records and their ownership details of the state, the ED claimed.

It alleged that Prasad was “involved in the corrupt practices which included falsification of original records and had been a party with several other persons in their activities linked to the acquisition of landed properties in a fraudulent manner”.