RANCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), here on Saturday, has issued a fresh summon to Chief Minister Hemant Soren in a land scam asking him to appear before its zonal office for questioning on September 9. This is the third such summon issued to him.
Soren skipped the first summons on August 14 and sent a letter to ED asking it to withdraw the summons or he will be forced to take legal action against the agency. He described the summons as politically motivated. In response, the ED again issued a summon asking him to appear before it on August 24. Soren skipped it again sending a letter saying that he has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the summons issued to him.
Meanwhile, ED has also filed a Caveat in the Supreme Court on August 25 which is yet to be heard. Caveat gives a person the right to be heard before any decision is made against him as no court can make a decision or issue an order against a person without hearing his or her side.
However, the ED served the third summons as it found that the chief minister was showing no urgency to get his petition heard by the Apex court.
Notably, ED is probing two major cases of money laundering in Jharkhand. The first case is related to illegal mining in Sahibganj in which the CM was questioned on November 17 last year. The second case is related to an alleged land scam in the state capital for which Soren has been issued summons twice
by the ED.
13 people, including IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan and two businessmen, Amit Agarwal of Kolkata and Bishnu Agarwal, who owns shopping malls in Ranchi, have already been arrested in connection with the alleged land scam.