High Court stays Haryana Lokayukta orders against 5 fmr MLAs

Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the Haryana Lokayukta order recommending registration of FIR against five former Congress MLAs in connection with an alleged land scam raked up by INLD two years back.
The stay order was passed by Justice H S Sidhu after hearing a petition filed by the five former legislators challenging the recent orders passed by the Lokayukta.
The matter will now come up for further hearing on February 16 next year.
The case dates back to two years when the then opposition INLD released some CDs purportedly showing the five Congress MLAs allegedly seeking illegal gratification in lieu of getting permissions for change in land use.

The five were Rao Narinder Singh, former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Vinod Bhayana, Ram Niwas Ghorela, Naresh Selwal and Jarnail Singh.
In October last year, Haryana Lokayukta Justice (retd) Pritam Pal had directed police to investigate the alleged scam after holding that it was a fit case for investigation under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The Lokayukta had refused to give any reprieve to the accused leaders who had maintained that allegations against them were baseless.
In its orders on December 16, the Lokayukta had directed the government to appoint a high ranking official of impeccable integrity to further conduct the investigations in the matter.

He had directed the government to submit Action Taken Report in the matter within three months.
The legislators had then challenged the Lokayukta orders on ground that it had failed to inquire the matter within one year as mandated by the law and that the original device used for recording and subsequent transfer of data had not been examined by the forensic laboratory and only the CDs provided by opposition INLD were examined in laboratory.