Big trouble for Virbhadra Singh: CBI, ED officials raid Holly Lodge in Shimla

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) detectives from Chandigarh and Delhi are conducting searches at eleven premises belonging to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.

Shimla was agog when a team of 18 CBI officials landed at Holly Lodge, Singh's private residence early on Saturday morning. Officers of the Enforcement Directorate also accompanied the team, according to local police sources.

CBI sources in Delhi stated that apart from Holly Lodge, similar searches were being conducted at eleven different locations in in Delhi and Singh's ancestral family home in Sarahan (Himachal Pradesh).

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CBI sources confirmed that the raids follow the decision, on Friday (September 25), to convert a preliminary enquiry (PE) earlier registered against the HP chief minister into a 'regular FIR' charging him under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The case against Singh, officials said, is based on an investigation of allegations of corruption pertaining to his tenure as a Union Cabinet minister for steel in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA-2 government. Singh and others are charged with possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Notably, chief minister Singh himself has always rejected the allegations of corruption as instigated by former BJP chief minister PK Dhumal and his associates.

But besides the disproportionate assets case now being probed by the CBI, Singh faces other charges of corruption including proceedings by the Income Tax Department. These pertain to the revised tax returns Singh submitted for 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12, wherein he claimed a ten-15 fold rise in income from apple orchards owned by him.

The CBI-ED raids at all eleven of premises owned by Virbhadra Singh were still on at the time of filing of this report.