RANCHI: Suspense grips over Chief Minister Hemant Soren's appearance before the Enforcement Directorate as he is scheduled to go to Dumka to attend ‘Aapki Yojana, Apki Sarkar Aapke Dwar’ programme on Tuesday.
Though there is no official communication in this regard, looking at the last-minute preparations being
done in Dumka, it could be presumed that he will skip the ED summons again on Tuesday for the sixth consecutive time in a land scam case.
Meanwhile, State BJP President and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi suggested Soren face the ED. He also urged the Governor to take strict action against him, if he failed to appear before the Enforcement Directorate.
“If the Chief Minister himself defies the law then he should be dismissed from the post,” said Marandi. If CM himself does not follow the rules, it conveys a bad message to the people, he added.
Notably, ED has summoned Soren again by ED for the sixth time in a land scam case as he ignored five summons issued earlier to him.
Interestingly, the Jharkhand High Court has already rejected his petition challenging the summons issued against him by the ED in a land scam case.
Incidentally, Soren moved to Jharkhand High Court after the Supreme Court refused to entertain his petition directing him to approach the High Court instead of coming directly to the apex court. Soren had approached the Supreme Court challenging the summons issued by the ED saying that it is wrong for the ED to summon him in the land scam, but the Apex Court refused to entertain his petition.
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. But, the ED again issued a summon against Soren asking him to appear before it on August 24.
Soren skipped it again and sent a letter to ED saying that he had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the summons issued to him, but he was summoned again by ED for the third time.
Soren was waiting for the hearing of his petition in the Supreme Court on September 17, but before that, he was issued a fresh summons by ED asking to appear before it on September 23.
Despite going to the ED office, Soren approached Jharkhand High Court against the summons issued against him and sought relief. But, a few days later, ED issued a fresh summons, this time for the fifth time, asking Soren to appear before the Central Investigation Agency on October 4, which he skipped again.
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 Agrawal of Kolkata and Bishnu Agarwal, who owns shopping malls in Ranchi, has already been arrested in connection with the alleged land scam.