CHANDIGARH: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday filed a chargesheet against former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former bureaucrats in connection with the Rs 1,500 crore Manesar land deal, in which around 200 farmers were cheated, at a special CBI court in Haryana’s Panchkula.
Sources said the lawyer representing the investigation agency and it’s sleuths filed the 80,000-page chargesheet against 34 accused, including Hooda, former Union Public Service Commission member Chattar Singh, former IAS officer SS Dhillon, Hooda’s former principal secretary Murari Lal Tayal, and Atul Bansal, promoter of Gurugram-based real estate company ABW Builders.
The investigating officer in the case brought two cupboards full of papers to file the chargesheet.
As the CBI court judge Jagdeep Singh directed the investigating agency to submit all the documents relating to the chargesheet by February 26.
The CBI filed the chargesheet under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and cheating and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Reacting to the filing of the chargesheet, Hooda said, “I have been maintaining from day one that it is a politically motivated case. My government did nothing wrong. I have complete faith in the judiciary.”
A CBI official claimed that the name of one of Hooda’s relatives had cropped up during the probe as one of the buyers of the land, but he has not been charged yet.