Bhupinder Singh Hooda faces new charge by CBI

Trouble for former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has increased with the CBI slapping the charges of “destruction of evidence” on the accused, including former officials of Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), for the alleged irregularities in allocation of 14 industrial plots at Panchkula in 2012. Hooda is also one of the accused in the case.

Sources said, “The agency has booked all accused under Sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 204 (destruction of document or electronic record to prevent its production as evidence), and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.”

Destruction of evidence is a serious offence, sources said adding that the agency will soon send all electronic evidence recovered during searches on Saturday for forensic examination. The agency has named the then chairman of HUDA, three former bureaucrats, 13 beneficiaries and unknown officials of the authority and state government. The chief minister is the chairman of HUDA.

The agency sleuths on Saturday carried out searches at 16 locations, including Chandigarh, Panchkula, Faridabad, Delhi, Gurgaon, Karnal, Kurukshetra and Rohtak, at the premises of former bureaucrats and beneficiaries who are alleged to have used their links in getting industrial plots at Panchkula. Sources said during searches on May 21, the agency sleuths had recovered '85 lakh cash from the premises of Anupam Sood and Sachin Sood residents of Panchkula while '6.25 lakh were recovered from Mona Devi and '8 lakh from Nandita Hooda.

The 14 people who had been allotted lands had submitted their applications on January 24, 2012 whereas the last date of submission was January 6, 2012, the FIR alleged. Besides Chairman of HUDA, others named in the FIR are retired IAS officer DPS Nagal, the then Chief Administrator of HUDA, S C Kansal, the then Controller of Finance and B B Taneja, the then Deputy Superintendent of HUDA. Those allotted the industrial plots included Renu Hooda, Manjot Kaur, Nandita Hooda, Mona Beri, Pardeep Kumar, KPS Sandhu, Dagar Katyal, Ganesh Dutt Ratan, Aman Gupta, Lt Col OP Dahiya (retd), Sidharth Bhardwaj, Ashok Verma, Anupam Sood and Sachin Sood. It is alleged that all of them were related to politicians, bureaucrats and other influential people which included the then Chief Minister of the state.