NEW DELHI: By refusing to appear before ED despite summons, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren may have constricted his options. Under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), ED has been empowered to be a quasi-judicial authority having the same powers as vested in a civil court with regard to summons, production of documents and evidence recording underoath.
His repeated ‘refusal to cooperate’ with the agency may just be one of the grounds for his eventual arrest, a trajectory that cases against some high-profile politicians have taken. For instance the arrest of Anil Deshmukh, the former home minister of Maharashtra. Deshmukh had avoided repeated summons by the agency and even went underground for more than six months before he was taken into custody on November 2 last year.
