NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the CBI’s response to a plea by the legal heirs of late former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, who seek to be made parties to his pending appeal against conviction in a disproportionate assets case.
Justice Ravinder Dudeja issued notice to the agency and listed the matter for September 15.
The heirs contend they should be allowed to pursue the appeal Chautala had filed during his lifetime. Their application records that he died on December 20, 2024, in Gurugram, Haryana and notes that his four-year sentence had already been suspended by the high court.
On August 3, 2022, the court granted him bail by suspending the sentence, subject to payment of a Rs 50 lakh fine imposed by the trial court, along with a personal bond and surety.
On May 27, 2022, the trial court convicted Chautala and sentenced him to four years in prison, also imposing a Rs 50 lakh fine for possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income between 1993 and 2006. He then moved the HC seeking suspension of the sentence, which was allowed with conditions. The case stems from a CBI FIR filed in 2005. The agency filed its chargesheet in 2010, alleging that Chautala amassed disproportionate assets in his own name and in the names of his kin.