ED Summons Jharkhand CM To Appear On Aug 24 For Money Laundering Case Probe, Cong Questions Agency
The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Chief Minister Hemant Soren for a money laundering probe in connection with an alleged defence land scam case.
The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to appear before it on August 24 for a money laundering probe in connection with an alleged defence land scam case. Earlier, the ED had on August 8 summoned the Jharkhand Chief Minister to depose on August 14 at the federal agency's office and record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. However, he skipped the summon. The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party's ally Congress questioned the ED summons with state Congress chief Rajesh Thakur saying that the move is aimed just "creating a message".
Jharkhand Congress chief Rajesh Thakur told news agency PTI, "ED's behaviour is clearly visible. You (ED) summon him to appear on August 14 when the CM has to hoist the flag on August 15, why are now summoning him on August 24? You could have asked him to appear on 17 or 18 August. This shows you are not in any hurry, you just want to create a message."
"It was speculated that CM will not hoist the flag (on Aug 15). This is not right. The law will see all this and we will take the legal recourse," he added.
On November 18 last year, the 48-year-old JMM leader was interrogated for over nine hours by the nodal agency in another money laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining in the state.
According to news agency PTI, the ED is probing more than a dozen land deals, including one related to defence land, wherein a group of land mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly connived to forge deeds and documents as long back as 1932.
Earlier, a special PMLA court sent Jharkhand IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, arrested by ED, to jail. The agency quizzed Ranjan for around 10 hours on April 24 in connection with its probe into money laundering in the alleged illegal land deals.
The ED has arrested several people so far including Soren's political aide Pankaj Mishra.
In November last year, Soren claimed that he was a "victim of conspiracy" by the opposition BJP to topple his government. "The central agency should level allegations only after a detailed investigation into the matter... I am the chief minister of the state and hold a constitutional post. But the way the summons were issued, it seems I will flee from the country," he had said, as quoted by PTI.
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