Manesar land scam: ED files chargesheet against former Bhupinder Singh Hooda and 34 others

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a second supplementary chargesheet in the land scam case in Manesar, Haryana. The chargesheet has been filed against of ABW Infrastructre Ltd and its owners Atul Bansal, wife Sona Bansal, Mahamaya Export Pvt Ltd, Shashikant Chaurasia, Dilip Lalwani, Varinder Uppal, Vijay Uppal, Ravinder Taneja, TDI Infrastructure Ltd, Wisdom Realtors Pvt Ltd and AB Rephcons Infrastructure Pvt Ltd.

The ED began its probe after the FIR was lodged by the Gurugram police and the CBI. The CBI had accused 34 people including former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. After ED took over the case, money laundering charges were added as well. So far, assets worth 108.79 crore have also been attached.

According to the chargesheet, the Haryana government had taken out a notification in the year 2004, in which it was said that the government will launch a Industrial Model Township in Manesar at 912 acres of land and for this the land of the farmers will be taken. 

It is alleged that all this was done in connivance with the builders. The builders acquired 350 acres of land at cheap prices from the farmers to the farmers of Manesar, Naurangarpur and Lukhnaula at a cost of Rs 20 to 25 lakh. 

After this the government took out land acquisition notification and the builders bought 50 acres of land for Rs 1 to 1.5 crores while the price of the land at that time was around 4 crores per acre. 

Later the government withdrew the notification in 2007. This caused a loss of about Rs 1500 crores to the land owners.

After buying land from the farmers, the builders sold it to other builders at expensive prices, which benefited the builders but the real landowners, the farmers, suffered huge losses. 

The investigation revealed that ABWIL Group owner Atul Bansal, had purchased maximum land from the farmers. Bansal bought it and later sold it to other builders at expensive prices.

In February 2018, the CBI had also filed a chargesheet against former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and 34 others in Panchkula, Haryana.