Shimla, March 4 (IANS) The Himachal Pradesh High Court Tuesday asked the state to file, by March 11, the latest investigation report in the corruption case registered against the state cricket body.
Acting Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir passed the order on the petition filed by the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) seeking quashing of the first information report (FIR) against it.
It pleaded that the FIR was vague, malicious and a result of political vendetta.
After partly hearing the arguments of both the parties, the court posted the matter for next hearing March 11.
Earlier, the high court had indicted the government for forcible eviction of Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur-led cricket body from its stadia and ordered restoration of possession to it.
The court then ordered status quo ante with respect to the cabinet decision taking over the properties.
“The orders of forcible dispossession are against law, constitutional guarantee and obligations of the state to its citizens as a person in settled possession of a premises cannot be dispossessed by an executive fiat, even though he can be stated as a trespasser,” the bench observed in November last year.
The state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau in August last year filed a cheating and misappropriation case against the HPCA over alleged wrong-doings in allotment of land to the sports body for constructing a residential complex for the players near its stadium in Dharamsala, some 250 km from here.
The disputed land, three km from the picturesque stadium, has been used by the HPCA to build a five-star residential complex called The Pavilion, which has 38 rooms, 32 huts and a high-tech gym. The HPCA website calls it an “exotic residential resort”.