Misled into ordering CBI probe, claims former Home Secretary

Naveen S Garewal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 26

Former Home Secretary Subhash Chandra Goel, who had said “yes” to the proposal for a CBI inquiry into the Manesar land case, has now written to the CBI Director, saying that he was misled into accepting the proposal as the matter had already been decided by the Punjab and Haryana High court and an SLP was now pending in the Supreme Court.

Terming the ordering of the Manesar land case to the CBI as a conspiracy, Goel has asked the CBI Director and the Haryana Chief Secretary to take corrective action.

The matter assumes significance in the light of raids by the Enforcement Directorate across several places yesterday, targeting serving and retired bureaucrats who were close to the erstwhile Bhupinder Singh Hooda regime. The raids were conducted in nearly 10 locations in Haryana and National Capital Region.

The matter came to light when the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gurugram, took up a matter in a criminal complaint under Section 156 (3) of the CrPC, filed by RTI activist Ravinder Kumar for directing the SHO of Gurugram to register an FIR against former Commissioner of Police (CP) Navdeep Singh Virk for recommending a CBI inquiry on the basis of an FIR, concealing that the complainant had lost the case in the High Court.

Goel, who was the Home Secretary when the government handed over the Manesar case to the CBI (wherein senior officers and politicians have been accused of buying land at throwaway prices by proposing to acquire land and later not doing so), terms it as a “conspiracy under active concealment of facts by Navdeep Singh Virk, then CP, Gurugram, while making a recommendation for the CBI investigation into the matter even as the issue was decided by the High Court and pending in the Supreme Court”.

Goel has told the CBI Director and the Chief Secretary, that he was kept under dark by the office of the DGP into the Manesar land case.

The former Home Secretary has told the CBI Director that Virk, in his letter dated August 12, 2015, had recommended a CBI inquiry hiding the fact that the High Court had already rejected the claim of complainant Om Parkash. “I, as Secretary, Home, proposed the matter to the ACS, Home, for investigation to the CBI on August 13, 2015. Had there been any reference to the said judgment of the High Court, I would certainly have never recommended for a CBI investigation,” he said.

Goel has pointed out that the legal opinion dated August 11, 2015, tendered by the Advocate General, Haryana, was never referred to the Home Department for its consideration prior to issue of notification for handing over the matter to the CBI on August 14, 2015.