The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday granted bail to former deputy chief minister Om Parkash Soni in a disproportionate assets case registered against him in July. An Amritsar court had rejected his bail application on September 21.
The order was passed by high court bench of justice Vikas Bahl on the plea from Soni, filed on October 6. Detailed order is awaited. However, one of the lawyers associated with the case, Isha Goyal said, that after this order Soni would be released from jail as he is not required in custody in any other case.
He was arrested from Chandigarh by the Vigilance Bureau’s Amritsar-range team on July 10 for amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income following an eight-month probe in a case registered on July 9 this year.
The complaint against him was lodged with the VB in October last year. He was booked under Sections 13 (1) (b) and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. As per the prosecution, the VB analysed his sources of income and expenditure from April 2016 to March 2022. Soni and his family had an income of ₹4.52 crore, while their expenditure was ₹12.48 crore, which was 176% ( ₹7.96 crore) more than his known sources of income, the VB has claimed, adding that he had amassed properties in the name of his wife Suman Soni and son Raghav Soni.