Manesar land deal case: HC seeks CBI response on Hooda’s plea

The controversy dates back to 2004. The Haryana government issued a notification to acquire 912 acres of land under Section 4 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, on August 27, 2004, in Manesar, Lakhnaula and Naurangpur villages

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday sought response from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a plea from former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, challenging a special court order to proceed with the process of framing of charges in Manesar land deal case.

Bhupinder Singh Hooda has challenged a special court order to proceed with the process of framing of charges in Manesar land deal case. (HT File)

The former CM had sought quashing of the September 19 order of Panchkula’s CBI special court decision of dismissing his request for postponing the process of framing of charges. The special court had fixed the date for the same of October 30.

Hooda’s counsel, senior advocate RS Cheema had submitted that the trial court’s decision to proceed against some accused while proceedings are stayed by the Supreme Court for co-accused would amount to an illegal segregation or splitting up of the trial.

“The trial court rejected deferment of proceedings because the Supreme Court stay applied only to the accused who had filed petition in the apex court and not the remaining accused,” Cheema said further adding that the reasoning was fallacious and should not be deemed a refusal for others.

On August 24, 2007, then director industries passed another order, releasing the land, in violation of government policy, in favour of the people who had bought the land, instead of the original landowners, CBI had alleged in its chargesheet. The central agency had started a probe in September 2015 and in 2018, it filed a chargesheet running into 80,000-pages against 34 people, including Hooda.

In January this year, the CBI through its counsel Ravi Kamal Gupta had sought expeditious disposal of the case arguing that a stay has been in operation in favour of the accused persons for the last four years. Following this, the bench had said that it would expedite hearings.

The stay on trial was vacated in May this year by the high court and also dismissed pleas from some bureaucrats, who were summoned to face the trial. However, acting on the pleas from four former Haryana IAS officers, summoned to face the trial by the CBI court, the apex court had stayed proceedings against them on different occasions in May-July this year. These include former IAS officers, Rajeev Arora, Sudeep Singh Dhillon, Murari Lal Tayal and DR Dhingra.