‘Badals worth Rs 4,326 cr’

This includes $850 million (Rs 3,825 crore) worth of illegally acquired assets abroad, on which VB Chief Director A.P. Pandey said investigations are being conducted and a supplementary chargesheet would be filed.

Taking cognisance of the challan filed today, Ropar Additional District and Sessions Judge S.K. Goyal, who is also Special Judge for corruption cases, issued summons to Badal, wife Surinder Kaur, son and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhbir Badal as also relative Narotam Singh Dhillon, on December 1.

Two others named in the challan — family manager Harbans Lal Gupta, and teacher Jagnandan Singh — are already in judicial custody. Significantly, proceedings were conducted in-camera even though the trial is to be conducted in open court. The Vigilance Bureau chief said ‘‘no application has been moved before the court for the arrest of Sukhbir today.’’ However, he did not rule out Sukhbir’s custodial interrogation.

Four people have been declared proclaimed offenders (PO) in the case, including Wimpy’s International owner Kanwaljit Singh Sidhu whose investments of Rs 7.14 crore in Orbit Resorts has been treated as the Badals’ benaami property.

Other POs are Badal’s former OSD Hardeep Singh Bamra, Sukhbir’s PA Krishan Kumar and alleged hawala operator Pinky Grover.