The CBI on Saturday carried out searches at Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s residence in Shimla besides 12 others locations, including in the National Capital, after registering a case against him, his wife and others in connection with alleged possession of disproportionate assets.
Besides Singh, the CBI has also named his wife Pratibha Singh, brother Chunni lal Chauhan and lIC agent Anand Chauhan as accused in the case registered under Prevention of Corruption Act.
This is probably the first such raid on a serving Chief Minister. The searches started soon after Singh had left for the Sankat Mochan Temple in Shimla at 7.30 am to solemnise the marriage of his second daughter. He had also planned a lunch reception. An 18-member CBI team swooped on the 81-year-old CM’s official residence in Shimla to conduct the searches.
The agency conducted the searches at 13 different locations in Shimla and Solan (Himachal Pradesh) and New Delhi. Searches were carried out at his official residence in Delhi, his two houses in Shimla and ancestral Padam Palace in Rampur and a farm house in Mehrauli in South Delhi which is registered in the name of his son Vikramaditya Singh.
Incidentally, the PE was completed during the tenure of Ranjit Sinha as CBI Director and the probe team had in July last year recommended registration of a regular case, as reported by The Pioneer then. The CBI move comes after the agency converted a Preliminary Enquiry into a Regular Case against Singh, his wife, two private persons and unknown others on Wednesday on the allegations of possession of disproportionate assets.
“During searches, incriminating documents, property papers, investments, hard disks, pen drives etc have been recovered,” a CBI spokesperson said.
“This FIR was the outcome of a preliminary enquiry which revealed that then Union Minister while serving during 2009-2012 had allegedly accumulated assets worth `6.03 crore (approx) in his name and in the name of his family members which were found to be disproportionate to his known sources of income. The other FIR named persons had allegedly abetted then Union Minister in committing the offence, the CBI said in a statement.
The then Union Minister for Steel and MSME had invested his unaccounted income in lIC policies in his name and in the name of his wife and other family members through a private person by showing the same as agricultural income.
This was done by creation of a MoU purportedly dated June, 15, 2008 for maintenance of an apple orchard, with the said private person for a period of three years. The private person had allegedly deposited about `5 crore cash in his own bank account and debited the same through cheques for purchasing various lIC policies in their names.
later, he allegedly attempted to legitimise the same as agricultural income by filing revised Income Tax Returns in 2012.
“The agricultural income as claimed by him in his revised ITRs was not found to be tenable. The then Union Minister had allegedly accumulated other assets disproportionate to known sources of income, the CBI further said.
Four premises in Parwanoo in Himachal Pradesh of Anand Chauhan, believed to be close to Singh, and his brother Chunni lal Chauhan were also searched. The agency also raided three other places in Delhi belonging to an alleged hawala dealer and two locations at Shakur Basti and lawrence Road in Delhi owned by a Singh’s associate.
CBI claimed that during his tenure as a Minister in the UPA regime, Singh who is a six-time Chief Minister, invested `6.1 crore in life Insurance policies in his and his family members’ names through Chauhan.