Supreme Court to hear Hemant Soren's bail plea on May 21, asks Enforcement Directorate to reply by May 20

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren's bail plea. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said it will hear the plea on May 21 on grounds of election.

SC sought Enforcement Directorate’s (ED’s) reply by May 20 on Soren's plea for interim bail to campaign for the Lok Sabha election.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Soren, said the politician would surrender himself on June 2 if granted bail.


"There is no material against me in the case. Elections will be over if not granted interim bail," Sibal said.

Sibal and senior advocate Arunabh Chowdhury, also representing Soren in the matter, said Soren is not in possession of the land in question and has nothing to do with it.

Appearing in the matter on behalf of the ED, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju said Soren was arrested long ago and he has not even challenged the dismissal of his regular bail application.

Soren was arrested on January 31 in the money-laundering case linked to an alleged land scam after he resigned as the Jharkhand chief minister.

Earlier, Jharkhand High Court rejected Soren's plea challenging arrest on May 3. Following the judgement, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha president moved the Supreme Court last week.

Recently, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case due to the election.

(With inputs from agencies)