Just about a year since his release from jail in the teachers’ recruitment case, a city court on Saturday convicted 87-year-old former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in a case related to disproportionate assets.
Special judge Vikas Dhull of the Rouse Avenue court passed the order and posted the matter for May 26, when the court will hear the arguments on the quantum of sentence.
The Chautala family had slammed the case as “political vendetta”. Chautala served as the State’s Chief Minister four times — from July 24, 1999 to March 5, 2005; from March 22, 1991 to April 6, 1991; from July 12, 1990 to July 17, 1990; and from December 2, 1989 to May 22, 1990.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had lodged the case in 2005, and a charge sheet was filed in March 26, 2010, accusing Chautala of amassing assets worth Rs 6.09 crore, much disproportionate to his legitimate income, between 1993 and 2006.
In January 2021, a Delhi court framed money laundering charges against Chautala in connection with the disproportionate assets case. Chautala and his son Ajay were also sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment after they were found guilty of corruption in a teacher recruitment scam in 2013. Chautala, now 87 years old, was released from jail in July 2021.
In April 2019, the Enforcement Directorate attached Chautala’s assets worth Rs 3.68 crore in Delhi, Panchkula and Sirsa in connection with a money laundering case against him and others, as per reports. The ED said the CBI probe found that Chautala allegedly acquired assets of over Rs 6.09 crore between May 1993 and May 2006 and the source of income for these assets’ purchase was not known.
This is Chautala’s second conviction after he was pronounced guilty by the Supreme Court in 2013 in the JBT teachers’ recruitment scam and sentenced to seven years’ jail on corruption charges and 10 years on charges of criminal conspiracy.
He was released from Tihar jail on July 2 last year after completing his sentence in the case.