Chattar Singh, Tayal, Dhillon granted bail in Manesar land deal case

Rajender Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, April 19

A special CBI court on Thursday granted regular bail to former Union Public Service Commission member Chattar Singh, former Principal Secretaries ML Tayal, SS Dhillon and several builders in connection with the Manesar land deal case.

CBI Judge Jagdeep Singh granted regular bail to all the accused — who were present in the court today — on two sureties of Rs 5 lakh each.

Meanwhile, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and sitting Punjab and Haryana High Court judge’s son Gaurav Chaudhary were given medical exemption by the CBI court. Hooda’s counsels SPS Parmar and Abhishek Rana submitted before the court that Hooda is unwell and undergoing treatment at the AIIMS, Delhi.

The accused were also given copies of chargesheet submitted by the CBI recently.

The court has fixed next date of hearing on May 1.

Earlier, the CBI court had dismissed pre-arrest bail plea of Chaudhary while an anticipatory bail plea of Tayal was dismissed as withdrawn.

Chaudhary and his two companies — Flair Realtors Pvt Ltd and Metropolis Realtors — are among the 34 accused named in the alleged scam along with former Haryana Chief Minister Hooda.

The CBI, on February 2, had filed a chargesheet running into 80,000 pages against 34 persons, including Hooda, Chattar Singh, Tayal and Dhillon.

The CBI claimed that the government had issued notifications under the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring 912 acres in Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula villages in Gurugram district for an industrial model township. Threatening farmers with acquisition, private builders, in connivance with public servants, reportedly purchased about 350 acres at throwaway rates of between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh per acre.

The land, valued at more than Rs1,600 crore, was allegedly purchased for Rs 100 crore. The CBI had submitted that this land was released in violation of the government policy in favour of the builders, their companies and agents instead of original land owners.