MANESAR CASE: HOODA FAILS TO TURN UP IN COURT
MANESAR LAND SCAM Counsel says he is admitted to AIIMS in New Delhi; others granted bail, next hearing on May 1
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda failed to turn up in the local CBI court in connection with the Rs 1,500 crore Manesar land scam, hearing of which commenced on Thursday. Hooda’s counsel SPS Parmar moved a plea for his personal exemption on medical ground, claiming his client was admitted to AIIMS, New Delhi, due to diabetes and other medical issues.
PANCHKULA: Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda failed to turn up in the local CBI court in connection with the Rs 1,500 crore Manesar land scam, hearing of which commenced on Thursday.
Hooda’s counsel SPS Parmar moved a plea for his personal exemption on medical ground, claiming his client was admitted to All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi, due to diabetes and other medical issues.
According to the plea, he was under treatment at the cardio division and was yet to recoup from his ankle injury too.
Parmar told the media that the court had allowed his plea. The date of next hearing is May 1.
Gaurav Chaudhry, son of a sitting Punjab and Haryana high court judge, whose anticipatory bail was dismissed four days ago, also did not appear and sought medical exemption. He has been asked to present in the next hearing. Two other accused Anil Batra and Ramesh too did not turn up.
HOODA’S EX-AIDES, BUILDERS GET BAIL
Meanwhile, Hooda’s former principal secretaries Murari Lal Tayal and Chattar Singh and former director of town and country planning department SS Dhillon — all co-accused in the scam — were granted bail following their appearance, even as the CBI opposed their plea.
The then district town planning officer Jaswant Singh too was allowed bail.
Apart from them, Atul Bansal, promoter of Gurgaon-based realty firm, ABW Group, whose 15 companies are named in the chargesheet as major beneficiary of this scam too was granted bail. The bail plea of other builders including, Varinder Jain and Naveen Rao, too were accepted.
The CBI, in its voluminous challan on February 2, had charged Hooda, his aides and realty firms with criminal conspiracy and fraud.
The Rs 1,500-crore alleged scam pertains to misuse of the Land Acquisition Act for acquisition of 12-acre land in Industrial Model Township (IMT), Manesar, Gurgaon. While the acquisition was ordered in 2004 during the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) government, the process began during Hooda’s government that came to power in 2005.
Under the Hooda regime, a large number of farmers sold 350 acres at throwaway prices of Rs 20-25 lakh per acre to builders in a haste, fearing poor compensation. Another 50 acres were purchased by land sharks even as the government issued a notification for Rs 1.5 crore per acre of compensation Gurgaon-based realty firm, ABW Group, and other builders bought a total of 459 acres through distress sale.
The Hooda government scrapped the acquisition process in 2007, only to later grant licences for housing and commercial development to the builders over 260 acres of that land. Soon after coming to power in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime had ordered a CBI probe in 2015. ABW Group’s owner Atul Bansal, the CBI claimed, was the major beneficiary All the accused who appeared in the court on Thursday were given the copies of chargesheets that were brought in a mini-truck. Each accused was given 10 bundles consisting of nearly 80,000 pages.
HOODA’S COUNSEL SAID HIS CLIENT WAS UNDER TREATMENT AT THE CARDIO DIVISION OF AIIMS AND WAS YET TO RECOUP FROM HIS ANKLE INJURY TOO