E-Paper
Hooda acted ‘illegally’ on plot allotment to AJL, ED to HC
The ED’s response came on the petition filed by Congress leader and chairman of AJL, Moti Lal Vora, who has sought quashing of the money laundering case registered by ED in the alleged irregularities in the allotment.
Enforcement directorate (ED) on Wednesday told Punjab and Haryana high court that former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda ‘illegally reallotted’ a plot to the Associated Journals Limited (AJL) in Panchkula and misused his official position to extend the ‘favour’ to the publisher.
The ED’s response came on the petition filed by Congress leader and chairman of AJL, Moti Lal Vora, who has sought quashing of the money laundering case registered by ED in the alleged irregularities in the allotment.
AJL is publisher of the National Herald newspaper with Vora as chairman and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi as shareholders.
The ECIR registered on July 15, 2016 by Chandigarh office of the ED was based on a May 5, 2016 FIR of the Haryana vigilance bureau regarding allegations of cheating and corruption against Hooda and others for allegedly reallotting an industrial plot in Panchkula to AJL.
Later in December, the Haryana government had recommended a CBI probe into the case.
The plot had been initially allotted to AJL in 1982. After the expiry of the lease period in 1996, Haryana Vikas Party government led by Bansi Lal took back its possession. It was reallotted to AJL after the Congress came into power in 2005 with Hooda as CM.
ED claimed that Hooda was “desperate” enough to extend favour to AJL and overruled recommendations of HUDA administrator and financial commissioner, town and country planning department who had stated on proposal for reallotment that there was no merit in the application of AJL. Hooda, by this allotment, ‘misused his position and caused wrongful loss to the public exchequer and plot worth crore was allotted at Rs 59 lakh.
