DA case: Court reserves order on Abhay Chautala's plea to travel abroad

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on reserved its order on the plea of former Haryana chief minister O P Chautala's son Abhay Chautala in a disproportionate assets case, seeking its nod to travel to Lahore in Pakistan.

The order was reserved after Abhay's counsel submitted an application before Special Judge Arvind Kumar seeking permission for the accused to travel to Lahore on Thursday for two days to attend a wedding.

The plea was opposed by the CBI, which had lodged the

DA case

against Abhay, his father and INLD chief O P Chautala and brother Ajay on the complaint of Congress leader Shamsher Singh Surjewala alleging that the three accused had amassed wealth worth several times more than their income.

Objecting to Abhay's application on Wednesday, CBI special public prosecutor Ajay Gupta said there was an inexplicable delay in filing this plea as he made the request only on Wednesday for travelling to the "enemy country" on Thursday.

"Why is the plea filed at the 11th hour? They are not seeking permission, they are informing the court about travel," Gupta said.

To this, Abhay's lawyer Harsh K Sharma said the wedding invitation card was received via Whatsapp only on Tuesday and they moved the court for its nod immediately thereafter.

The CBI has alleged that Abhay owned assets worth over five times his income of Rs 22.89 crore as per income tax records during the 2000-2005 period. It has also claimed to have found Rs 119.69 crore worth of assets.

The CBI had also alleged that Ajay possessed assets exceeding his legal income by 339.27 per cent. His legal income between May 1993 and May 2006 was Rs 8.17 crore, but had acquired assets worth Rs 27.7 crore, it had alleged.

Earlier, all the three cases, which were being heard in different courts, were transferred to a single court on CBI's plea on the ground that trials in different courts would lead to inordinate delay in concluding them. All charges have been denied by Chautala and his sons.

Chautala and Ajay were sentenced to ten years in jail early this year by the high court in the 1999-2000 junior teachers recruitment scam.

CBI had on March 26, 2010 chargesheeted Chautala indicting him for allegedly possessing assets worth Rs 6.09 crore, far exceeding his legal income between 1993 and 2006. Two such cases are going on against his sons, Ajay and Abhay. In its chargesheet, the CBI had alleged that Chautala's wealth was 189 per cent more than his income of Rs 3.22 crore during the period.

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