The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has booked former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, officials of the Associated Journal Limited (AJL), publisher of the National Herald newspaper, and others on charges of alleged money laundering.
Officials said the agency registered a criminal case under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), after taking cognisance of a Haryana State Vigilance Bureau FIR of May this year. The vigilance Bureau had registered a case of cheating and corruption against Hooda and four officials who were in HUDA for allegedly re-alloting a plot to AJL in Panchkula in 2005. They said summons would soon be issued to the accused named in the agency’s FIR. Hooda termed the action as “political vendetta” and said there was no wrong doing.
The vigilance case that was registered under various IPC sections, including criminal breach of trust by a public servant, cheating, criminal conspiracy and under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, was registered against Hooda, the then Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) chairman, an ex-officio post held by him as the CM, and four other top officials of HUDA on May 5 this year. The plot had been initially allotted to AJL in 1982.