High court dismisses fresh application of RTI activist

SHIMLA: The Himachal Pradesh High court on Friday dismissed an application filed by an RTI activist to place some documents on record in matter of All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Sonia Gandhi’s daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s land deal at Charabara.

RTI activist Devasheesh Bhattacharya had filed an application seeking the reports of Special investigation team (SIT) constituted to probe the violation of section 118 of Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1972 in Solan district. Saying that it had no relevance with the case before court, Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan dismissed the petition. The case is listed for September 9 for next hearing.

“A perusal thereof reveals that nowhere in the entire application has the applicant stated as to how these documents are necessary…..It is more than settled that only those documents can be ordered to be placed on record, which have some semblance... Therefore, in absence of any such particulars, the application is clearly misconceived and is accordingly dismissed,” the court ordered.

Similarly, the applicant had earlier filed another application on which the Court had sent notice to Priyanka (April 28), to which she had submitted the reply. The applicant said that he had sought information under the RTI act regarding the file noting of the house allotment of Sonia Gandhi, AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi in New Delhi. NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) issued fresh summons against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife, Pratibha Singh, after she skipped Thursday’s date in connection with the money laundering case against her husband.

Sources said Pratibha was scheduled to appear before the investigating officer of the case but sought exemption citing personal reasons. They said she has now been summoned to appear next week, the third date of her appearance. Incidentally, the Delhi High Court is expected to hear Singh’s plea tomorrow, in which he had sought a direction to the agency to not take any coercive step against him in the wake of LIC agent Anand Chauhan’ s arrest.