Court grants interim bail to Om Prakash Chautala in assetsDA case
A Delhi court on Monday granted interim bail to former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in a disproportionate assets case filed against him.
Special CBI Judge P S Teji granted relief to Chautala, a sitting MLA of Haryana, on furnishing a personal bond and a surety of Rs one lakh each till Tuesday.
Chautala appeared before the court which had on April 20 issued summons seeking his presence after taking cognisance of a chargesheet filed against him by the CBI.
An accused who appears before a court on a summons following a chargesheet against him has to seek bail in order to avoid arrest.
The court is likely to hear Chautala's plea for regular bail tomorrow.
CBI had on March 26 filed the chargesheet against Chautala for allegedly possessing assets worth Rs six crore disproportionate to known sources of his income between 1993 and 2006.
75-year-old Chautala is a five-time chief minister and had last held the post between July 1999 to March 2005. He currently represents Uchana Kalan constituency of Hissar district in Haryana Assembly.
According to CBI, Chautala was found in possession of assets to the tune of Rs 6.09 crore disproportionate to known sources of his income. It is roughly 189 per cent of his income of Rs 3.22 crore during the period.
It claimed Chautala had been found in possession of immovable and movable assets worth Rs 7.43 crore in addition to the expenditure incurred by him for Rs 1.91 crore during the period.
CBI had registered a case in a designated court here in April 2006 and searched 24 premises of the Chautalas in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Chandigarh during which it had seized Rs 13 lakh in cash and frozen five bank accounts containing Rs 1.34 crore belonging to Chautala and his family members.
CBI had earlier filed the chargesheets against two sons of Chautala Ajay and Abhay Singh Chautala, both Haryana MLAs, on the charge of possessing disproportionate assets.
