Central probe agency—the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has requested the Jharkhand High Court to get the CBI investigated in the case registered against its officials and media persons under the SC-ST Act. Hemant Soren had lodged an FIR under the SC-ST Act on January 31 against ED officers Kapil Raj, Devvrat Jha, Anupam Kumar, Aman Patel and unknown others at the SC-ST police station in Ranchi.

The FIR states that ED officials had asked him to stay in Ranchi from January 29 to 31 and in the meantime raided his Delhi residence in his absence without prior notice. They come from Scheduled Tribe, but among the above ED officers, not a single officer belonged to SC-ST. He and his family have been mentally and socially tortured by this false, artificial act of ED. They are hurt. An attempt has been made through the above mentioned ED officials to defame them among the general public by spreading confusion in the media. However, the court has banned any coercive action against ED officials.

The chief minister’s complaint was against the backdrop of speculation that ED might arrest him in connection with the central agency’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act probe against Soren relating to the ownership of a parcel of land measuring 7.16 acres in Bajra area of Ranchi. It has been alleged that the land parcel was acquired through proceeds of crime involving the illegal sale of army land. Soren has dismissed the case as politically motivated and said the details of his assets were in the public domain.

The agency at that time had arrested 14 people in the case, including 2011 batch Indian Administrative Service officer Chhavi Ranjan, who served as director of the state’s social welfare department, deputy commissioner of Ranchi, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, and businessmen Amit Agrawal and Bishnu Agrawal, who own shopping malls in the state capital.