New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday issued fresh summons to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to appear at the Ranchi office on November 17 in connection with money laundering probe, news agency PTI reported. This is the second time that ED has summoned CM Soren on the allegation that he laundered money in a coal mining scam.
Earlier, the ED had summoned him on November 3. However, he did not appear and instead addressed workers of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, or JMM, which has a coalition state government with the Congress, outside his house, where he called the ED's summon to him a "part of a plot to harass a tribal Chief Minister".
“If I am guilty, why are you questioning me? Just come and arrest me if you can,” Soren said as reported by news agency ANI.
ED’s earlier summon came almost a month after it seized a passbook and a chequebook of Soren from the home of his alleged close associate Pankaj Mishra.
Notably, Mishra is currently in judicial custody for exercising control over the mining of stone chips and boulders and installing and operating several crushers set up across various mining sites in Jharkhand's Sahebganj district.
The ED made the revelations after it filed a Prosecution Complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 before the special court at Jharkhand's capital Ranchi against Pankaj Mishra, Bachhu Yadav, and Prem Prakash. ED conducted 47 searches throughout India and seized cash amounting to Rs 5.34 crore and freeze bank balances amounting to Rs 13.32 crore.
The probe agency also froze an inland vessel MV Infralink -III, reg. No- WB 1809, 5 number of stone crushers, two Hyva trucks besides the seizure of incriminating documents along with two numbers of AK 47 Assault Rifles.