Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Jaipur, Nov 1 (IANS) The Rajasthan High Court has allowed the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to take action against former state minister Shanti Dhariwal in the single-lease case, reopening the case in which her name was once dropped by the Gehlot government.
The court has now paved the way for hearing the pending protest petitions challenging the ACB closure report. The next hearing has been fixed for December 5.
Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma issued the order on Dhariwal’s petition. The court clarified that the protest petitions pending against the ACB closure report have to be decided by the trial court, and the judicial proceedings cannot be stopped.
In the court, government representatives, including ASG SV Raju, AAG Shiv Mangal Sharma and lawyer Sonali Gaur, argued that Dhariwal’s plea was not maintainable, given that no charge sheet had been filed and protest petitions were already pending before the ACB court.
Dhariwal’s lawyer countered that the former minister was named in the initial complaint, but was later given a clean chit in 2019 after a thorough investigation.
The defense said that Dhariwal was entitled to seek relief from the High Court after the trial court rejected the closure report.
After the latest order, ACB can now re-investigate the case and Dhariwal can be called for questioning once again.
The matter is very long. The single lease in question was issued by the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) on June 29, 2011, to Shailendra Garg of Ganpati Construction.
Following Ramsharan Singh’s complaint in 2013, several officials, including then ACS GS Sandhu, deputy secretary Nishkam Diwakar and zone deputy commissioner Omkarmal Saini, were arrested, and challans were filed. The lease was later canceled in May 2013.
The Vasundhara Raje government had registered the case in 2014, but later, under the Gehlot government, the ACB submitted three closure reports, each of which gave a clean chit to Dhariwal and other officers.
The Supreme Court had already directed in November 2024 that the Chief Justice hear the case personally, thereby setting aside earlier orders of the High Court which had quashed the proceedings against the accused. After which now the High Court has reopened the way for ACB action.
–IANS
arc/and