A special PMLA court on Monday extended the ED remand of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren by three days in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam, lawyers said. The Enforcement Directorate prayed for four days of remand of the JMM leader.
"They (ED) were asking for a four-day remand. They have no ground left for any further remand. They (ED) just want to buy time. They didn't have any new ground. They just want the case to be alive and stretch the remand period," Advocate General Rajeev Ranjan, Soren's counsel, told reporters.
Soren, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha executive president, was on February 7 remanded to five days of ED custody by the special PMLA (the Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court. On February 2, the court granted ED five days of custody.
Rajan, Soren's counsel, said, "We objected to the ED's request because no further remand is required". He had on February 7, said that the central agency had already interrogated Soren for 120 hours.
Soren on reaching the PMLA court, waved at his supporters, who raised slogans such as 'Hemant Soren Zindabad'.
He was arrested on January 31 after a seven-hour grilling by the central agency in the money laundering case. He resigned as the chief minister before his arrest.
