As Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren is facing an Enforcement Directorate probe in a money laundering and land scam case, the CM lodged an FIR against ED officials under the SC/ST Act. As per reports, Hemant Soren filed the case under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, accusing the ED officials of “tarnishing his image”.
This comes after the Enforcement Directorate searched his house in Delhi on Monday in connection with the case. The agency seized ₹36 lakh in case, a BMW SUV and some “incriminating” documents at Soren’s residence, as per agency officials.
“An FIR has been lodged against some senior ED officials… we got the application from the Chief Minister,” Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police, Chandan Kumar Sinha, told PTI confirming the case filed against ED officials.
In his complaint, Soren claimed that his image has been maligned by the ED officials who reached his Delhi residence without any prior information and allegedly propagated false news, the SSP added.
The Jharkhand CM is wanted for interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a major land scam case. Soren has already skipped 9 ED summons. The current summon to him is the 10th summon by the probe agency. The ED had written to Jharkhand CM asking him to provide a date for questioning on January 29 or 31, or else the agency itself will go to him for questioning, in connection with a money-laundering case linked to an alleged land scam.
Earlier on January 22, ED issued a summons to Soren for the ninth time, asking him to be available for questioning between January 27 and 31 in the case.
Meanwhile, on January 20, the Enforcement Directorate arrived in Ranchi to question the Jharkhand Chief Minister in the land scam case. The eighth summons was issued to Soren on January 13, asking him to be available for questioning between January 16 to 20, in the case.
According to the Enforcement Directorate, the investigation pertains to a “huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia” in Jharkhand. The ED officials are investigating the illegal purchase and sale of 4.55 acres of land under military control in Ranchi.
The ED had opened a probe into three cases of land fraud based on numerous First Information Reports filed by the Jharkhand Police and the West Bengal Police against Pradip Bagchi, Bishnu Kumar Agarwal, Bhanu Pratap Prasad as well as others under various Indian Penal Code sections.