gurugram

Updated: Jul 30, 2019 03:28 IST

The Supreme Court has directed the CBI to file a charge sheet in four months (till November) after completing the investigation in a case about the release of over 1,300 acres of Gurugram land from the acquisition process and grant of colonisation licence to realtors during the Congress rule between 2009-12.

On a prayer by superintendent of police (SP), anti-corruption unit of CBI, Vijayendra Kumar, seeking extension of time to file a final report, the bench of justice Arun Mishra and justice MR Shah ordered on July 26 that four months’ time is granted to complete the investigation and file the chargesheet/report.

The agency had come under fire from the apex court on the last hearing for seeking indefinite time to complete the probe.

The agency had, on January 23, 2019, registered a criminal case against former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, an official and 15 real estate developers in the land matter and conducted search operations at several places.

“The government thinks it can suppress my voice through such raids, but that will never happen. I belong to a family of freedom fighters. I will fight them in court,” Hooda had said.

The apex court had in November 2017 ordered a CBI probe in the land matter with a six-month deadline (till May 30, 2018) for the agency to submit a report. The probe agency, on its asking, was subsequently given an extension of time on multiple occasions to submit the report.

On January 7, 2019, the apex court granted a further four-month extension of time to prepare and file the final report.

After the central investigating agency filed the final report on April 27, 2019, the apex court expressed its dissatisfaction since the investigating agency had failed to come up with a deadline to complete the probe and submit a charge-sheet in the court. When the matter came up for hearing on July 3, the SC bench said such a report praying for an indefinite period to complete the investigation ought not to have been filed in this court.