A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Ranchi extended the Enforcement Directorate (ED) remand of former chief minister Hemant Soren by five days in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam, according to news agency PTI.
Soren, who resigned as chief minister before his arrest, was remanded to five days' ED custody on February 2 by the special PMLA court. This custody period ended on February 7, after which he was granted an additional five days of remand on the same day.
The former chief minister was arrested on the night of January 31 following a seven-hour interrogation by the ED in connection with the money laundering case.
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"They (ED) were asking for a four-day remand...They have no ground left for any further remand. They (ED) just want to buy time...They didn't have any new ground. They just want the case to be alive and stretch the remand period," Advocate General Rajeev Ranjan, Soren's counsel, told reporters.
The case against Hemant Soren pertains to his involvement in an alleged land scam in Jharkhand, wherein he is accused of being a key beneficiary of illicitly obtained land through fraudulent means, according to the central probe agency.
The summon he received last week was pertaining to an FIR registered in this case in June 2022 on the complaint of a tax collector employed with the Ranchi Municipal Corporation.
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Soren has been on the probe agency’s radar for another money laundering case which is linked to “rampant” illegal stone mining in Sahibganj district. In a press release on January 4, the probe agency said the quantum of illegal mining of more than 23.26 Crore cubic feet having approximate market value of Rs. 1250 Crore has been detected and determined during their investigation.
The former chief minister was questioned by the ED in the same case in 2022. However, he had then retorted to the allegations, saying that, all the “(railway) rakes”, trucks, and barges available in Sahibganj could “not have possibly transported 8 crore metric tonnes of stones, which is required to be illegally mined to cause a loss of Rs 1,000 crore to the state exchequer in two years”.
