NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the stand of AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan on a plea by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) challenging his bail in a case related to alleged irregularities in the Delhi Waqf Board.
Justice Yogesh Khanna issued a notice on the ACB’s petition for cancellation of the bail granted to Khan by the trial court earlier this year. According to the FIR, Khan, during his tenure as chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board, had indulged in several irregularities, including illegally recruiting 32 people by violating all norms and government guidelines.
The then CEO of the Delhi Waqf Board had clearly given a statement and issued a memorandum against such illegal recruitment, the FIR said. In its petition, the ACB said there are grave and serious allegations against the AAP leader which attract a maximum punishment of life imprisonment and the trial court ordered his release by “completely ignoring” the parameters for granting bail.
It asserted that the investigation is at a “very delicate stage” and the present case requires that Khan be taken into custody on account of the “clout and influence” enjoyed by him, the likelihood of the offences being repeated and the reasonable apprehension of evidence tampering.
The plea also said that the trial court “ignored the criminal antecedents” of Khan and that it should not have given a finding on the material collected by the ACB at this stage. On September 28, the trial court had granted bail to Khan, saying “prima facie the allegations against the accused are not grave and serious in nature”.
The trial court had said that according to the statement of the Delhi Waqf Board’s CEO, it was “prima facie shown that the accused being the chairman of Delhi Waqf Board went ahead with the recruitment in violation of the instruction of the Delhi government just to favour his relatives and members of his constituency”.
Leased property dispute: BJP leader’s firm to pay Rs 3.75 crore
A Delhi court has directed a company owned by Haryana politician Kuldeep Bishnoi to deposit Rs 3.75 crore towards use and occupation charges of a leased property. According to the lease deed, the property – a farmhouse in Rajokari village – was taken on lease by the defendant company specifically for residential use by its managing director Kuldeep Bishnoi and his family on a rent of Rs 4.25 lakh per month for a period of two years, the suit said. But the lease agreement from 2013 ended in 2015 and despite receiving legal notices, the possession of the property was not handed over to the owner and plaintiff.