Ranchi: A Ranchi court has found former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren guilty of disobeying a notice issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a land-grabbing case. The ED had filed a complaint against the senior JMM leader for not joining the probe despite seven summonses.

Soren was summoned for the first time on August 14 last year. The ED has said in the complaint that Soren should be prosecuted under Section 174 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code. The probe agency arrested Soren (48) on charges of money laundering on January 31 after the second round of questioning at his official residence. 

Hemant Soren had resigned from the post of Chief Minister before being arrested, and he is now in judicial custody. "The facts of the complainant (ED) and the material placed on record prima facie constitute an offence under Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, against accused Hemant Soren, and there is sufficient ground to prosecute him under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973," the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Krishna Kant Mishra said in its order on Monday."

"The office is directed to issue summons to the accused person to appear before it," the court said. It fixed April 3 as the date for Soren to be produced before the court.

Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) deals with the powers of a magistrate to issue a summons or warrant for the appearance of an accused. The ED has also filed a similar complaint in court against Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal for defying the agency's summons three times.

The ED has made allegations against Soren in its complaint, saying that he deliberately did not comply with the summons and did not reach the mentioned place and time of the summons, thereby non-compliance of the summons issued by the investigating officer under Section 50(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The allegation pertains to Soren's probe into the alleged fraudulent acquisition of 8.5 acres in Ranchi.