By IANS,
New Delhi : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was Monday issued notice by the Delhi High Court asking why it had not sought government sanction before filing charges against Indian National Lok Dal MLAs Ajay and Abhay Chautala in an alleged disproportionate assets case.
Justice Sunil Gaur issued notice to the CBI seeking their reply on why it had not sought sanction before filing a chargesheet against the two sons of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing on behalf of the Chautala brothers, said the trial court has failed to take note that on the day the court took up the case, the two INLD leaders were MLAs of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.
He told the court that the alleged offence took place when the Chautalas were MLAs and even at the time of the CBI filing the chargesheet they are still lawmakers.
“A sanction should have been taken,” Rohatgi said.
The court directed the trial court not to pronounce the order on the charges till the next date of hearing, May 31.
The Chautala brothers had challenged the order of the trial court that had taken cognisance of the CBI chargesheet.
“The CBI special judge has not taken the appropriate sanction if the offence is committed by a public servant,” Rohatgi said.
“The chargesheet in the case has been filed for causing unnecessary harassment and humiliation to the petitioner. Judicial process ought not to be permitted as an instrument of oppression and needless harassment,” the petition states.
A city court had Feb 2 issued summons to Ajay Chautala and his brother Abhay Chautala for appearance in a disproportionate assets case registered by CBI. The CBI had filed a chargesheet against them Dec 24.
According to the chargesheet against Ajay, the CBI claimed he was in possession of assets to the tune of Rs.27.74 crore — more than his income Rs.8.17 crore during the period 1993 to 2006.
The second chargesheet was filed against Abhay alleging his assets were 522 percent more than his income of Rs.22.89 crore as per Income Tax records during the check period of 2000 to 2005. The agency claimed to have found Rs.119.69 crore worth of assets.
The CBI registered a case in a designated court here in April 2006. It searched 24 premises of the Chautalas in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Chandigarh during which it seized Rs.13 lakh in cash and froze five bank accounts containing Rs.1.34 crore belonging to the Chautalas.
The investigating agency’s FIR listed the moveable and immoveable properties belonging to either Chautala or his family members that had been acquired between July 1999 and March 2005 when they were public servants.
The FIR alleged that the Chautalas had plots at prime locations in Gurgaon in Haryana, Karol Bagh in Delhi, Manali in Himachal Pradesh, Nainital in Uttarakhand and in Chandigarh besides a hotel and a restaurant in Delhi’s Karol Bagh, a shopping mall, six plots of agricultural land, six farm houses and cash and jewellery worth Rs.50 crore.
The CBI had conducted a market survey and claimed in its FIR that the total value of all the properties was Rs.1,467 crore.
CBI claimed the assets were disproportionate to the Chautalas’ known sources of income and were “phenomenal” and would require an extensive and in-depth investigation.