Jharkhand High Court grants bail to Hemant Soren in money laundering case

The Jharkhand High Court on Friday granted bail to former Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the money laundering case filed against him in connection with an alleged land scam [Hemant Soren v. Directorate of Enforcement].Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay allowed the bail application filed by Soren today..Earlier Justice Mukhopadhyay had denied Soren's plea for interim bail to attend his uncle's funeral rites, finding that no exceptional circumstance was made out to grant such a prayer.However, the judge has allowed his regular bail application today..Soren had stepped down as Chief Minister of Jharkhand on January 31 following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case related to the “illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia” in the State.Soren has denied the allegations of money laundering. In a video released soon before he was taken into custody, he claimed he was being arrested on the basis of “fake papers” as a part of a conspiracy. A plea challenging his arrest by the ED was dismissed by a Division Bench of the High Court on May 3, after the Supreme Court refused to directly entertain Soren's plea on this aspect and directed him to approach the Jharkhand High Court first..As far as his bail application is concerned, the High Court opined today that there is reason to believe that Soren is not guilty of the alleged offence and that he is unlikely to commit such an offence while out on bail.The single judge concluded that the twin tests for bail in a money laundering case under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) have been satisfied."There is 'reason to believe' that the petitioner is not guilty of the offence ... on an overall conspectus of the case there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing a similar nature of offence," the Court's order stated..Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Meenakshi Arora, Anurabh Chodhary and Advocates Aprajita Jomowal, Abhir Datt, Piyush Chitresh, and Shray Mishra represented Hemant Soren. Additional Solicitor General of India, SV Raju led arguments for the ED. Advocates Zoheb Hossain, Amit Kumar Das, Saurav Kumar, Rishabh Dubey, Shivan U Sahay, and Sankalp Goswami also appeared for the ED..[Read Judgment]