SC stays DA case against Chautala’s sons

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stayed a disproportionate assets (DA) case against Ajay Chautala and Abhay Chautala, sons of INLD chief and former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala.

A bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and Cyriac Joseph, while staying the proceedings against the Chautala brothers, issued notice to CBI on a petition filed by them, which alleged that the initiation of prosecution against them was malicious and vitiated by alleged procedural illegality.

The Chautalas had challenged a trial court order summoning them in a DA case filed by CBI.

They had submitted that CBI, which filed the chargesheet, had failed to obtain mandatory sanction from the government before launching the prosecution, and alleged that the entire probe against them was politically motivated.

They claimed that prior sanction was necessary to prosecute MLAs as provided under Section 197 CrPC, and that CBI had failed to obtain the same as the two brothers were MLAs when the offence was allegedly committed.

The Delhi High Court had earlier on July 8 dismissed the petition filed by the duo challenging the trial court verdict.

The Chautala brothers, INLD MLAs in Haryana, had challenged the February 2 order of the trial court which had taken cognisance of charges against them in a disproportionate assets case. CBI had filed a chargesheet in December last year against the brothers in which it claimed that they had accumulated massive wealth which was disproportionate to their known sources of income.

According to the chargesheet against Ajay Chautala, CBI claimed that he was in possession of assets to the tune of 27.74 crore, more than three times his income of 8.17 crore shown for 1993 to 2006.

The second chargesheet was filed against his brother for assets five times more than his income of 22.89 crore as per income-tax records of 2000-2005 . The agency claimed to have found 119.69 crore worth of assets.

The investigating agency's FIR listed movable and immovable properties belonging to Chautala or his family members which had been acquired between July 1999 and March 2005 when they were public servants.