New Delhi, April 5: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against a Delhi high court order dismissing his plea to quash a disproportionate assets case registered by the CBI against him and his wife.
Singh’s petition in the top court has been filed a day after he termed the action being taken against him “a well-planned conspiracy to damage his public image in the run up to the assembly elections”. He alleged the corruption case against him was a result of political vendetta.
In his petition filed in the top court, Singh wondered as to how the CBI could register a case against him without the state’s consent — which was a pre-requisite under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act. Singh has maintained that CBI overstepped its jurisdiction in filing the case as the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Delhi.
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Contending that on the same set of facts the agency had earlier conducted a preliminary enquiry and closed the case, Singh questioned the CBI’s decision reopen the case.Justice Vipin Sanghi of the Delhi High Court had on Friday dismissed Singh’s plea to quash the CBI’s FIR and vacated the October 1, 2015 order of the Himachal Pradesh High Court that had restrained the probe agency from arresting, interrogating or filing a chargesheet in the case without the court’s permission.
Within hours of the Delhi High Court’s order, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Singh (82) and his wife in a city court. On Monday, the Enforcement Directorate attached his South Delhi farmhouse estimated to be worth Rs 27 crore. The CBI had registered the FIR against Virbhadra Singh and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015.
It had accused him of amassing assets worth Rs 6 crore between 2009 and 2012 during his tenure as Union steel minister in the UPA-II government. The agency has been saying that it has jurisdiction to register and probe the case in Delhi as the disproportionate assets were allegedly acquired by him from the illegal income generated a minister during UPA government.
Source: www.tribuneindia.com
