New Delhi: On a day when the Supreme Court granted Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal interim bail, it disposed of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren’s plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate as “infructuous”.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, who coincidentally heard Kejriwal’s case as well, said that the case is infructuous as the Jharkhand high court has dismissed Soren’s petition seeking the same relief.
Soren had filed the petition with the Supreme Court citing the fact that the high court had delayed the order despite arguments concluding on February 29, LiveLaw has reported.
The high court delivered the judgment – unfavourable to Soren – on May 3, only after the Supreme Court issued notice on the former chief minister’s petition on April 29.
Soren then filed a special leave petition challenging the high court’s judgement.
The bench said that Soren would have to raise contentions in the second petition next week. LiveLaw’s report notes that the senior advocate Kapil Sibal then argued that the Enforcement Directorate will then seek further time for its response in the new petition, causing an additional delay.
“I have a right as a citizen to be dealt with fairly by the HC…I remember telling your Lordships that this will happen if I am sent to HC, it has happened,” Sibal said.
The bench did not relent.
Soren, like Kejriwal, had been a sitting chief minister when the ED arrested him in an alleged land scam case on January 31 this year. Unlike Kejriwal, Soren had resigned hours before his arrest.
The two arrests of opposition party chiefs have been critiqued nationally and internationally as a significant marker in India’s declining democracy scores.
