Hearing on a public interest litigation against the State Government withdrawing criminal cases lodged against Roorkee MlA Pradeep Batra and his wife, the High Court of Uttarakhand in Nainital has set the next date of hearing in the case on January 11.
According to details of the case, former ward member of the Roorkee municipality, Rakesh Tyagi had filed a public interest litigation, stating that during discharging his duties as the head of the Roorkee municipal council, Batra had allegedly made allotment from the municipality’s land in violation of the regulations.
The committee formed on direction of the high court had also found that the allotment of land in question was in violation of the rules, the petitioner states, adding that this report had also been sent to the state administration. However, the state administration did not undertake any action in this regard. The petitioner went on to state that Pradeep Batra and his wife Manisha Batra had during 2006 taken admission in the Roorkee degree college of law but had never actually gone to the college. Someone else appeared in the examinations on their behalf in 2006 and 2007 following which the Batra couple managed the pass themselves. In this regard, Roorkee resident and former captain, Vinay Bhatia had in 2008 lodged a complaint against the said law college’s manager Om Tyagi in the Roorkee Kotwali and investigation in the case was handed over to the Crime Branch -Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID). In its investigation report, the CB-CID had found Pradeep Batra and his wife guilty along with the college manager and another person with cases being registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. However, despite recommendation against withdrawal of the criminal cases in question, the State Government had withdrawn the said cases against the Batras on February 15, 2013 citing public interest as the grounds for doing so. This was done during the tenure of Vijay Bahuguna as the chief minister of the Congress-led State Government. The matter was brought up for hearing in the court of the high court division bench comprising chief justice KM Joseph and justice VK Bist.