M A I N   N E W S

Centre orders CBI inquiry against Chautalas
Yoginder Gupta
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 3
It was a day of mixed feelings for the former Chief Minister and INLD supremo, Mr Om Prakash Chautala. While he was gloating over the relatively successfully Panipat rally, organised by his party to protest against the removal of the name of his father Devi Lal, from that of Panipat Thermal Plant, news came that the Centre had allowed the CBI to take up inquiry against him and his family members for allegedly amassing assets disproportionate to their income when his party was in power.

For Congressmen in Haryana, who will celebrate the completion of first year of the Hooda Government in Hisar on March 5, the news could not have come at a better time.

The Hooda government had written to the Centre on December 13, 2005, to ask the CBI to inquire into the chargesheet submitted by the Congress to the Haryana Governor, levelling serious allegations of corruption against the Chautalas. For all these months, there had been no response from the Centre, making the Haryana Congressmen nervous.

Now the Centre has issued a notification, authorising the CBI to investigate the allegations against Mr Chautala under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The notification, issued by the Union Ministry of Personnel, said “the Central Government hereby extends the powers and jurisdiction of the members of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (CBI) to the whole of the state of Haryana for investigation of the allegations against Mr Chautala levelled in the "Memorandum of chargesheet" submitted by Mr Shamsher Singh Surjewala and others, which gives details of the allegedly disproportionate assets acquired by Mr Chautala and his family members...”

Welcoming the notification, Mr Karan Singh Dalal, who waged a relentless war against Mr Chautala's "corruption" for five years and was a member of the committee, which framed the chargesheet, said the chargesheet submitted to the Governor was incomplete for want of time and resources. At that time, he said, the Congress had declared that a supplementary chargesheet would be submitted later on, to expose the role of certain officers, who helped the Chautalas in amassing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Mr Dalal said he would urge Mr Surjewala, who headed the committee, to prepare the supplementary chargesheet and submit to the CBI for taking the investigation against the Chautalas to its logical conclusion.