Hemant Soren moves SC against rejection of his plea challenging arrest by ED
New Delhi (PTI): Former Chief Minister Hemant Soren moved the Supreme Court on Monday against the Jharkhand High Court order dismissing his application challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam.
Appearing before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter seeking urgent listing of his plea.
Sibal said polling in Jharkhand for the Lok Sabha elections will commence on May 13 and Soren should be allowed to campaign for his party JMM.
"Hemant Soren was arrested on January 31. We moved the high court on February 4. The high court reserved the judgment on February 28 but did not deliver the judgement. The High Court kept the judgment pending for long.
"The first phase of election starts in the state on the May 13 and so we moved this court under Article 32 of the Constitution, and notice was issued last week. After the notice was issued, the high court delivered the judgment rejecting his plea. Its very unfortunate that rights are being trampled in this fashion," Sibal said.
The bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said it would look at the request and that Soren's plea for interim bail was set to come up for hearing on May 7.
Sibal said his appeal against the high court judgment should also be listed along with the bail plea.
The Jharkhand High Court had on Friday dismissed Soren's writ petition challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and denied bail to him.
Soren is at present lodged in judicial custody at the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi. He was sent to jail on February 15 after his 13-day ED custody ended.
The top court had on April 29 sought a response from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Soren's interim bail plea in the case.
The ED has alleged that "huge amounts of proceeds of crime" were generated by Soren through manipulation of official records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores of rupees.
Soren was arrested on January 31 after he resigned as the Jharkhand chief minister, and party loyalist and state transport minister Champai Soren was named as his successor.
The development came ahead of the Lok Sabha elections which were announced on March 16.
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Phase five LS polls: Rae Bareli, Amethi among 14 UP seats going to polls on Monday
Lucknow(PTI): Voting for the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, which will decide the fate of four Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, will be held on Monday.
Voting will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency.
The seats going to polls in the fifth phase are Mohanlalganj (SC), Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC), Barabanki (SC), Faizabad, Kaisarganj and Gonda.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Rahul Gandhi is in the fray from Rae Bareli, which was represented by his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi earlier.
Over 2.68 crore voters are eligible to exercise their polling rights and 144 candidates are in the fray.
The BJP gave tickets to 11 of its sitting Lok Sabha MPs in this phase, while it had fielded new candidates in Barabanki (SC) seat and Kaisarganj.
In the INDIA bloc, the Congress has fielded K L Sharma from Amethi, Tanuj Punia from Barabanki (SC) and Pradeep Jain 'Aditya' from Jhansi. The Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates are in the poll fray on the rest of the seats.
Defence minister Singh is eyeing a fourth term from Lucknow. He is pitted against sitting SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow Central.
From the neighbouring constituency of Amethi, Irani is in the poll fray.
In Kaisarganj Lok Sabha seat, the contest is between BJP's Karan Bhushan Singh, son of former MP and ex-president of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and SP's Bhagat Ram.
Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which covers the temple town of Ayodhya, will see a contest between sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh, who is seeking a hat-trick, and Awadhesh Prasad, the SP MLA from Milkipur (SC) assembly constituency in Ayodhya district.
In Hamirpur, the poll contest is between BJP's Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel, eyeing a third term, and SP's Ajendra Singh Lodhi.
In Gonda, BJP's Kirti Vardhan Singh, who is eyeing a fifth term, is facing a contest from SP's Shreya Verma.
The main electoral contest in Banda is between RK Singh Patel, who is seeking a third term, and Krishna Devi Shivshankar Patel of the SP.
Vinod Kumar Sonkar, who is eyeing a hat-trick of Lok Sabha wins, will be facing SP's Pushpendra Saroj, son of SP leader Indrajeet Saroj, for Kaushambi (SC) constituency.
Voting will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency.
Bypoll in the Lucknow East assembly constituency was necessitated following the death of sitting MLA Ashutosh Tandon on November 9, 2023.
