Ranchi (Jharkhand): Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who was arrested on Wednesday evening in an alleged land scam case, was on Friday remanded to five days' Enforcement Directorate custody by a special PMLA court in capital Ranchi, sources said. The remand came a day after the ED moved an application with the PMLA court seeking 10-day remand of Soren in the case.
Soren's lawyers said that the PMLA court reserved its order on Thursday while sending the JMM executive President to a day's judicial custody. Following his arrest on Wednesday evening in an alleged money laundering case linked to the “illegal” possession of huge parcels of land, Soren approached the Supreme Court on Thursday. In his plea, the JMM chief urged the court to declare his arrest as unwarranted, arbitrary, and in violation of his fundamental rights.
However, the apex court refused to entertain the plea and asked Soren to move the Jharkhand High Court in this regard. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna told Soren's counsel senior advocates Kapil Sibal and AM Singhvi that courts were open to everybody and asked them to move the Jharkhand High Court. Soren has accused the ED officers of abusing their powers for “extraneous considerations under the dictates of the central government as the petitioner is the leader of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, a prominent opposition party and an active constituent of the INDIA alliance”.
Following his arrest by the ED on Wednesday, senior JMM leader Champai Soren on Friday took oath as the new Chief Minister of Jharkhand amid allegations by the Congress-JMM alliance of poaching of MLAs by the BJP. The alliance partners had flown their MLAs to Hyderabad to prevent the alleged horse trading.
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