RANCHI: A special PMLA court in Ranchi on Monday rejected the bail application filed by former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who is currently under judicial custody after being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on January 31 in a money laundering case linked to the land scam.
Earlier on May 4, the court had kept its order reserved after hearing the arguments from both sides. The ED is probing the alleged huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores.
Meanwhile, the ED so far has provisionally attached tainted land parcels worth Rs 266 crore (Commercial Value) and has arrested 22 accused persons including IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, Bhanu Pratap Prasad (Revenue Sub-Inspector), Amit Kumar Agarwal, Prem Prakash among others in the money laundering case linked to land scam.
According to the ED, three Prosecution Complaints have been filed in the cases of land scams presently under investigation in the State. Meanwhile, the ED is carrying out an investigation in the Ranchi land scam case based on the documents recovered from Bhanu Pratap's house, one of the key accused in this case.
As per the ED, several important documents related to land were found during the raid from Sub-Inspector Bhanu Pratap Prasad's house in the Badagain zone.