Constituting Dhingra panel unilateral decision by Khattar: Sibal in HC

CHANDIGARH: Former Union minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Thursday accused Haryana chief minister Manohal Lal Khattar of taking unilateral decision in constituting one-man Justice S N Dhingra (retd) commission that had probed controversial land deals in Gurgaon, including those of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.
Sibal, who was representing former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda in a petition filed against Dhingra report, also submitted before the Punjab and Haryana high court that the CM took the decision merely on the basis of media reports.He submitted that the decision was taken on the basis of a single note prepared by the CM himself and there was no sufficient material with the government which proved that the commission was set up in public interest.
Additional Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, who represented the Haryana government, produced record pertaining to the constitution of the Dhingra panel.
While adjourning the case for December 13, division bench headed by Justice A K Mittal asked the Haryana government not to make the Dhingra panel report public till the next date of hearing.
The matter had reached before the HC in the wake of a petition filed by former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda challenging the constitutional validity of constitution of the Dhingra panel.
Hooda has alleged that Khattar’s May 13, 2015 order to constitute the commission was prompted solely by malice and with a clear intention of portraying him in bad light. He had also questioned the validity of notification issued by state government on May 14 without there being any reference to the cabinet, which was mandatory in terms of provisions of Section 3 of the Act. He expressed apprehensions that the present government may change certain portions of the report which were likely to embarrass the government.
On May 14, 2015, the state government had appointed the one-man commission to investigate licences issued to develop commercial colonies in Gurgaon during the Hooda regime.
The government’s announcement to set up the commission had not directly mention the name of Vadra or his firm Skylight Hospitality. It, however, had mentioned lands in Sector 83, Gurgaon, that includes Shikohpur village where a deal between Vadra’s company and DLF had sparked off a major controversy in 2012.