NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the response of the CBI and former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala on a plea for directions to the politician to immediately surrender.
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Justice Siddharth Mridul issued notice to the CBI and the Indian National Lok Dal leader after senior advocate Vivek Tankha appearing for the petitioner contended that Chautala intends to “misuse the grace period of 17 days given to him to surrender” by planning to campaign during that period.
Mr. Tankha also said Mr. Chautala has released a tour programme of his campaign which has been published in news reports.
While issuing notice to the CBI and Chautala, the court questioned, “Why has CBI not taken note of all this (election campaign)? CBI does not seem to be aggrieved by this.”
The court also questioned the maintainability of the application.
The matter was earlier in the day mentioned before a bench of justices B. D. Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul which had directed it to be listed before the court concerned.
Chautala, who has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail in a teachers’ recruitment scam case, had, on September 26, 2014 volunteered to surrender after which the court had directed him to surrender by October 17.
He had volunteered to surrender as the court was about to order constitution of a medical board of doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences to opine on the necessity of keeping Chautala hospitalised, as he had addressed a rally at Jind in Haryana on September 25.
The plea by advocate Hemant Sharma contends that the INLD leader intends to use the intervening period before his surrender “to campaign extensively in the State of Haryana”.