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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren's plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a land scam case on May 17, i.e., Friday.

A division bench agreed to hear him on a urgent basis after persistent submission made to this end by his counsel Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal.

When the matter was taken up, court issued notice listing the case on May 20th.

Hearing this, Sibal said, "Elections would be over by then..where do we go..please keep it on Friday..".

"Please grant interim bail..it will be infructuous by then..elections will be over, then please dismiss it..grave injustice is being done to us..this is not fair, Kejriwal's order covers me..", Sibal went on to submit before court.

When the court showed its reluctance to hear him Sibal said that he had already served ED on the 6th of May and they were purposely not appearing.

"We are giving you 17th, we don't know if we will be able to hear you..", a bench of Justices Khanna and Dipankar Datta said in response.

Court also asked Soren if he was in possession of the land in question.

"No...I have nothing to do with the land..even if they say forcible possession, it is not a scheduled offence..I have never accepted possesion..they just got a person to say "this is Mantri ji's land"..I have never been in possession I know nothing about it...", Sibal answered.

Two days back, top court had held Soren's plea against High Court's delay in deciding his bail application in the case was infructuous in light of Jharkhand High Court's May 3rd decision whereby it denied him relief after having reserved its orders in his plea in February.

In February, the bench comprising Justices Sanjv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi had asked Soren to approach the High Court with his petition challenging arrest after refusing any relief to him.

Last year in September, Supreme Court had asked CM Soren to approach the High Court with his petition seeking to quash the two summons issued to him by the Enforcement Directorate under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

Soren had challenged the summons being ex facie illegal, null and void, and being violative of the object and provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 and impinging upon the Fundamental Rights guaranteed to him under Articles 14,19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

Case Title: Hemant Soren vs. ED