Ranchi, March 4 (HS): The petition of ED officials Kapil Raj and others challenging the FIR registered against ED officials on the complaint filed by Chief Minister Hemant Soren was heard in the Jharkhand High Court. On Tuesday, the court has maintained the interim relief given to the ED officer in the case. The court has given four weeks time to the state government to file a counter affidavit.

Earlier, the court had given interim relief to the ED officials and stayed the notice given by Gonda Police under 41A. The court had said that till further orders, the police cannot call ED officials for questioning by issuing a notice of 41A. Advocates AK Das and Saurav Kumar argued on behalf of ED.

This FIR has been registered by Jharkhand Police in the SC-ST police station of Ranchi under the SC-ST Act. This FIR has been filed on a complaint regarding the search conducted by ED at Hemant Soren’s Delhi residence. ED has requested the court to quash this case. In the FIR, senior ED officials have been accused of the search conducted at Hemant Soren’s residence in Delhi. This FIR includes the names of then Additional Director of ED Kapil Raj, Assistant Director Devvrat Jha and Anuman Kumar and Aman Patel as well as unknown officials. In this, Hemant Soren alleged that the ED search operation at his Delhi residence was carried out with the intention of harassing and defaming him and his community. ED officials leaked this information to the media, so that his reputation gets tarnished in the eyes of the public.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar