NEW DELHI (TIP): Following conviction in the teachers recruitment scam, former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala is facing confiscation of his properties. Enforcement Directorate on Thursday attached a residential property belonging to Chautala under the criminal provisions of money laundering laws. This is the first attachment order by the agency against the five-time CM even as it prepares to attach assets acquired by him “illegally and beyond his known sources of income” with an estimated value of over Rs 6 crore.

The first attachment order was issued by the agency against him for a flat in Gurgaon on Delhi’s outskirts and, according to ED, the house is in the “exclusive” name of Chautala with a total value of Rs 46,96,000. The flat is located in Sector 28 of Tech-city under Haryana Jan Pratinidhi Cooperative Group Housing Society scheme. The agency is probing the politician and his associates under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after it registered a case based on a CBI chargesheet.

The ED’s attachment order can be challenged at the PMLA Adjudicating Authority in Delhi within 180 days of issue. Chief of Indian National Lok Dal, 78-year-old Chautala, along with 54 others, is on interim bail for medical treatment after he was sentenced by a Delhi court in the 2000 Junior Basic Trained (JBT) Teachers recruitment scam. On January 22, the trial court had convicted and sentenced Chautala and nine others, including his son Ajay Chautala, to 10 years’ jail term for illegally recruiting 3,206 junior teachers.

Among other convicts, 44 have been sentenced to four years in jail and one was sentenced to a fiveyear jail term. All of them were held guilty of cheating, forgery, using fake documents as genuine, conspiracy under the IPC and for abusing their official position under the Prevention of Corruption Act.