Supreme Court dismisses former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren's plea against ED arrest in land scam case
New Delhi/IBNS: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren's plea seeking an interim bail and challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged land scam, media reports said.
Soren then withdrew the plea before the top court.
This was after the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Dipankar Dutta and Satish Chandra Sharma pulled up advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing Soren, for "not disclosing" the fact that a trial court had taken cognisance of the case against the Chief Minister on April 4.
"Is it a fact that when you filed this petition, you did not disclose the cognisance order?", Justice Datta asked Sibal as quoted by The Hindu.
The court also mentioned Soren moved a plea seeking an interim bail before it while a bail in the PMLA case is pending in a lower court.
In response, Sibal said it was never an intention to mislead the court.
Soren had filed the plea citing an interim bail which has been granted to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal till June 1 in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam.
On January 31, the Enforcement Directorate formally arrested Hemant Soren in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land deal in Jharkhand.
Soren had resigned as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand before he got arrested by the ED.
The Jharkhand High Court on May 3 dismissed Soren's writ petition challenging his arrest in the land scam case and denied him bail.