Charge sheet filed against Himachal CM in assets case
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a charge sheet against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and seven others in connection with a disproportionate assets case in a special court on Friday.
The chargesheet, which is over 400 pages, mentions at least 220 witnesses and gives details of Singh’s income from January 28, 2009 to October 18, 2011.
The agency has claimed in the chargesheet that Singh has unaccounted wealth worth 192% of his actual earnings.
The CBI registered a case on September 23, 2015, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, against Singh, his wife, Life Insurance Corporation agent Anand Chauhan and an associate Chunni Lal, after a preliminary inquiry revealed that Singh allegedly accumulated assets worth ₹6.03 crore, which were disproportionate to his known sources of income, during his term as a Union minister from 2009 to 2012.
Anand Chauhan, who is currently in judicial custody, was arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on July 9 last year in a separate money laundering case related to the present case.
The chargesheet also men tions that during investigations Singh could not give any informa tion of the extra assets that he had. Apart from the chief minis ter, his wife, Chauhan and Lal the other people named in the chargesheet are Joginder Ghalta Prem Raj, Vaka Mullah Chan drashekhar, Lawan Kumar Roach, and Ram Prakash. The CBI has filed the chargeshee before Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal, who has listed the matter for Saturday for consider ation of the investigation report
The Delhi HC earlier on Friday dismissed the plea of the CM and his wife seeking to quash the FIR registered by the CBI agains them. Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated an order of the Himacha Pradesh high court of October 1 2015 restraining CBI from arrest ing, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case withou the court’s permission. “The wri petition is dismissed. Stay is vacated,” Justice Sanghi said.
On October 1, 2015, the Hima chal HC had passed an interim order restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet against Singh. The CBI sought to vacate the order contending that it was hampering the investigation.