Former Haryana Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday deposed before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in connection with Gurugram land scam case.
A senior ED official on conditions of anonymity said that Hooda is being questioned under sections of Prevention of Money Laundering act (PMLA) in connection with Gurugram land scam case.
He said the agency has registered a case against Hooda on the basis of the CBI FIR filed in January this year.
In January 2019, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed a case against Hooda, senior bureaucrats and prominent builders for alleged cheating and forgery. The matter pertains to the sale of 95 per cent of 1,400 acres in Gurugram (sectors 58 to 63 and sectors 65 to 66) to private builders.
The CBI had registered a case in September 2015 following allegations that private builders, in conspiracy with public servants of the Haryana government, had bought around 400 acres of land from farmers and landowners of Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula villages in Gurugram district at throwaway prices.
The land was valued, at that time, at around Rs 1,600 crore but it was bought by the builders for around Rs 100 crore.
The land was bought in the period from August 2004 to August 2007. The Congress government in Haryana, led by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, remained in power from March 2005 to October 2014.
Earlier, in December 2018, the ED in its probe said that was revealed that ABW and its group companies illegally acquired land from farmers at throwaway prices under the threat of acquisition by the government, during the period August 27, 2004 to August 24, 2007.
Hooda is also being investigated in another money laundering case involving Associate Journals Limited (AJL) for alleged irregularities in allotting land when he was Chief Minister.