Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has termed the seventh summons of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to him as “baseless, biased”, indicating he will not appear before the agency.

A special messenger from the chief minister’s secretariat on Tuesday afternoon handed over a sealed letter to the Ranchi zonal office of the ED.

Sources in the chief minister’s secretariat remained tight-lipped over the contents of the letter.

But sources in the ED confirmed that Soren’s letter had criticised the federal agency terming its probe into the alleged money laundering charges over a land “scam” in Ranchi and the chief minister’s role in it as “baseless and biased”.

The letter also accused the ED of engaging in a media trial against him and hinted at taking legal recourse against the summons.

“The letter claims that the ED investigation is not ‘grounded in pursuit of truth’ but rather is a targeted ploy against him. He also expressed his displeasure with the alleged media trial orchestrated by the agency, suggesting that its objective is to tarnish his image and discredit his work in the political arena,” said a source in the ED office quoting the letter.

The ED had on Saturday issued its seventh summons to Soren and the chief minister was to have given a reply by Sunday about the date, the place and the time for deposing before the ED.

Soren had filed petitions before the Supreme Court and Jharkhand High Court seeking protection from the ED’s actions. Both the courts dismissed his petitions.

Amid speculations that Soren’s wife Kalpana would be a stopgap chief minister, the ruling coalition (JMM-Congress-RJD) has convened a meeting of MLAs here on Wednesday.