Jharkhand High Court on Friday granted bail to JMM leader and former chief minister Hemant Soren in a money-laundering case, boosting the ruling JMM-Congress-RJD government a few months before the Assembly polls.

Hemant stepped out of the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi, accompanied by his wife and newly elected Gandey MLA Kalpana, around 4.30pm after his lawyers furnished two sureties of ₹50,000 each.

Hemant, MLA from Barhait, thanked his supporters who had gathered outside the jail, reiterated that his arrest was part of a political conspiracy, and vowed to fight on “in the cause of the people and the tribals”.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Hemant on January 31 in a money-laundering case relating to an alleged land scam. Just before his formal arrest, Soren went to the Raj Bhavan and resigned as chief minister.

The single-judge bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay, which had on June 13 reserved its order on Soren’s bail application, said: “The overall conspectus of the case based on broad probabilities does not specifically or indirectly assign the petitioner to be involved in the acquisition and possession as well as concealment of 8.86 acres of land at Shanti Nagar, Baragain, Ranchi connected to the ‘proceeds of crime’.

“None of the registers/ revenue records bear imprint of the direct involvement of the petitioner in the acquisition and possession of the said land.

“The claim of the Enforcement Directorate that its timely action had prevented the illegal acquisition of the land by forging and manipulating the records seems to be an ambiguous statement when considered in the backdrop of the allegation that the land was already acquired and possessed by the petitioner as per some of the statements recorded u/s 50 PMLA, 2002 and that too from the year 2010 onwards.”

Hemant told reporters: “I’m out of jail after five months. These five months were worrying for the people of Jharkhand and the tribals…. It troubles me the way systematic attempts are being made to suppress the voice of politicians, writers, journalists and social workers.”

JMM spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya said Hemant was arrested just before the general election to help the BJP. “However, the tribals gave their verdict and the BJP could not win a single ST seat in the state.”