Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, serving a 10-year jail term in a teachers’ recruitment scam case, moved the Delhi High Court on Friday challenging the AAP government’s decision barring him from any political activity during his three-week furlough.
The Indian National Lok Dal chief was to be released on furlough from January 22, ahead of the Jind bypoll, however, the date was postponed to January 29, which is after the election, and with the condition that he will not attend or address any political meeting.
The bypoll is scheduled for January 28 after the seat fell vacant following the death of INLD MLA Harichand Middha.
In his petition filed through Amit Sahni, Chautala said he was a victim of “political conspiracy hatched between the AAP in Delhi and the Jannayak Janta Party, headed by his grandson Dushyant Chautala”.
The plea said that due to a plot hatched by his kin, now heading the JJP, Chautala’s furlough was interfered with and a new condition, barring him from political activity, was added.
The INLD chief contended that in the January 17 order of the Director General of Prisons, Tihar jail, granting him furlough, there was no condition, but later, on January 18, the condition was added.
Chautala and his son Ajay Chautala were among 55 people convicted in 2013 for illegally recruiting 3,206 JBT teachers in Haryana in 2000. In August 2015, the apex court dismissed the Chautalas’ plea against an HC verdict upholding their conviction and 10-year jail term, awarded by a trial court.