Haryana: Special court discharges former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda in land allotment case

A special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Haryana’s Panchkula on Friday discharged former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress leader Motilal Vora and the company Associated Journals Limited in a case related to an allegedly illegal re-allotment of a plot, The New Indian Express reported.

Judge Rajeev Goyal closed the complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate, PTI reported.

This came days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on February 25 set aside a 2021 order that had framed charges against Hooda, who is currently the leader of the Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, Vora and the Associated Journals Limited, the publisher of the National Herald.

The High Court had said that there were insufficient grounds to proceed with a criminal trial. It noted that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case of dishonest intention or wrongful gain.

On Friday, Hooda’s counsel told reporters that Goyal had closed the Enforcement Directorate complaint as Hooda and the Associated Journals Limited had already been discharged in the main case pursued by the Central Bureau of Investigation, PTI reported.

The case

The case pertained to the allotment of a plot in Panchkula’s Sector 6 by the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran, then known as the Haryana Urban Development Authority, to the Associated Journals Limited in 1982, PTI reported.

The plot was taken...

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