Ex-Himachal chief minister Dhumal booked

The Himachal Pradesh vigilance and anti-corruption bureau has registered a case against former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal for alleged misuse of position when he held office in 2007, an official said here Wednesday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader was booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act for favouring an Indian Police Service (IPC) officer, A.N. Sharma, who is now retired, the official said.

Sharma, who is also named in the first information report (FIR), had applied for voluntary retirement from the police service to contest the 2007 assembly elections on the BJP ticket. But he did not get the ticket from the BJP.

At that time, the Congress led by Virbhadra Singh was in power in the state.

In that election, the BJP returned to power. The BJP allowed Sharma to withdraw his resignation to rejoin the service. The BJP government led by Dhumal promoted Sharma to the rank of inspector general of police.

The FIR was registered under different sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the official said, adding that then principal secretary (home) P.C. Kapoor was also named in the case.

Earlier, the vigilance and anti-corruption bureau had charged Dhumal and his son Anurag Thakur, who is a Lok Sabha member from Hamirpur, in a trial court in Dharamsala April 25 with alleged wrongdoing in allotment of the land to the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA).

The filing of the charge sheet came hours after the high court dismissed the HPCA's petition for quashing an FIR against them under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Thakur is the president of the HPCA.