RANCHI: Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s appearance before the special PMLA court in Ranchi in connection with the 8.86-acre land case in Bargain circle was deferred to September 24 due to technical issues.
Following the dismissal of his petition in the High Court on Friday, he was required to appear before the PMLA court on September 19. However, his counsel expressed inability to appear, citing the CM’s busy schedule. Consequently, the court had fixed September 21 as the date for the appearance.
But Soren could not appear before the court through video conferencing on Monday due to a Jio server outage. Consequently, the court has scheduled September 24, 2026, as the next date for the framing of charges.
Meanwhile, Soren suffered another setback as the court of the Additional Judicial Commissioner-cum-Special Judge (PMLA) rejected an application filed on his behalf under Section 309 CrPC / 346 BNSS, seeking to defer the framing of charges and the trial proceedings.
The court clarified that the continuation of “further investigation” in the case does not imply that the process of framing charges based on the original complaint should be halted.
During the hearing, Hemant Soren’s counsel cited Supreme Court judicial orders, arguing that the ED had sought permission to file a supplementary complaint. They contended that commencing the trial by framing charges while the investigation is still underway runs contrary to legal principles and, therefore, the charge-framing process should be deferred until the investigation is complete.
The ED’s Special Public Prosecutor, however, strongly opposed the application, terming it a strategy to delay the hearing. He pointed out that Soren’s discharge petition had already been dismissed and the Jharkhand High Court had also refused to stay the trial proceedings.
The ED stated that supplementary investigation is legally permissible under Section 44 of the PMLA and poses no legal bar to proceeding with the trial based on the original complaint.
After hearing both sides, the special court dismissed Hemant Soren’s petition. In its order, the court noted that the Supreme Court has clarified in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary vs. Union of India case that money laundering is a continuing offence. The filing of a supplementary complaint neither extinguishes the original complaint nor halts the trial, it said.