Chandigarh: The Haryana Vigilance Department has registered an FIR against former state chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for his alleged involvement in the National Herald case.
Hooda, who as the CM was the ex-officio chairman of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), has been accused of illegally transferring land to Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), which published the newspaper, at Panchkula in 2005.
Hooda has been charged with cheating and breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code and also criminal misconduct under Prevention of Corruption Act.
The original allotment was made in 1982, but the land was reclaimed by the government in 1996 when AJL did not start construction work on it. However, it was finally allotted back to AJL with Hooda's approval in 2005, but at the 1982 rates.
Apart from the chairman, the FIR also lists HUDA’s then chief administrator and administrator under sections 409, 420 and 120B of the IPC and section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. It also includes the state financial commissioner and office-bearers of AJL, New Delhi.
When contacted, Hooda said, “I am yet to see the FIR and will be able to comment after I study it.”
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had accused Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, by which Young Indian (YI) obtained the rights to recover Rs 90.25 crore which the Associated Journals Limited (AJL) had owed to the Congress Party.
Swamy had earlier alleged that over Rs 2,000 crore worth of assets also got transferred to YI, whose 76 percent of shareholding is with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, while the remaining 24 percent shareholding is with the other accused.
