Trouble has deepened for former Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who now features in a corruption case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation over anomalies in a land acquisition exercise embarked upon when he was chief minister of Haryana about a decade ago.

Fifteen builders including DLF, Emaar MGF, Buzz Hotels, Ansals, RS Infrastructure, HS Realty and Martial Builcon have also been named in the CBI's first information report, which alleges that the Hooda government acquired 1,417 acre of land in 2009 in Gurgaon at throwaway prices by manipulating landowners, only to hand it over to private builders for kickbacks.

On Friday morning, the central agency raided 27 locations in Delhi and Gurgaon, including Hooda's residence in Rohtak and the offices of the builders accused of having colluded with him.

The state's additional chief secretary, Trilok Chand Gupta, who was at the time the chief administrator of Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), which carried out the acquisition purportedly to provide affordable land to the public, has also been booked.

Other builders named in the FIR are Marconi Infratech, Commander Realtors, SU Estates Pvt Ltd, Krrish Buildtech, JMD Ltd, Gupta Promoters, DSS Infrastructure and Sana Realtors.

The case has been registered after the Supreme Court, on November 1, 2017, directed the agency to probe alleged irregularities in the acquisition of 1,417.07 acre of land between 2009 and 2012 for sectors 58 to 63 and 65 to 67 in Gurgaon.

The government had issued a notification for the acquisition on June 2, 2009. The year after, on May 31, 2010, another notification was issued for acquiring 850.1 acre. The notifications triggered a panic sale to private developers, with land parcels going for way cheaper than the prevalent market prices, preliminary investigations revealed.

In the time between the two notifications, roughly 616.40 acre was released in favour of developers, the inquiry revealed. And even though swathes of land were of no use to HUDA, they were covered under the government notifications.

It also emerged that the private builders conspired with Hooda and Gupta with an intent to cheat landowners, and that HUDA missed its stated intent of ensuring affordable developed land for the public, especially economically weaker sections, by a wide margin.

The developers, in turn, used their influence to get licences for land pockets that were not useful to HUDA, and these plots were released from the acquisition process.

In most instances, the "colonisers" compelled the landowners who did not want to sell, to do exactly that, at prices lesser than what they were before the notifications were issued in villages Nangli Umarpur, Ghata, Tigra, Ulahwas, Kadarpur, Maidawas, Badshahpur and Bahrampur (sector 58 to 63 and 65 to 67 in Gurugram).

'Preliminary inquiry established that the plots in question were released from acquisition process irregularly, in connivance with public servants Hooda and Gupta, and the licences were fraudulently obtained by the accused companies in the names of their collaborators, the FIR states.

CASE FILE

• CBI FIR names former Haryana CM Hooda and former HUDA chief administrator TC Gupta, other than 15 builders including DLF, Emaar MGF, Buzz Hotels, Ansals, RS Infra, HS Realty  
• Alleges corruption and collusion in acquisition of 1,417 acres of land in Gurgaon in 2009-2010  
• FIR registered following directions from the Supreme Court in Nov, 2017