Also looked after Virbhadra orchard,says LIC agent

Chauhan,however,sounded unfazed as he denied the charges and said the entire episode was a political conspiracy ahead of the elections. “I am at my native place because of a death in the family,” Chauhan,who belongs to Dhartoo village near Kiari in the Jubbal-Kotkhai area of Shimla district,told The Indian Express over phone.

“ Virbhadra Singh is being made a target by political opponents,especially the BJP,because of the elections. Neither he nor I have committed any irregularities in getting the insurance policy for him and his family members. I will be back in Shimla with all the papers to explain the position. All charges of bogus accounts and inflated orchard income are baseless,” he said. sked about Jaitley’s allegation that he had excess income running into crores earned from his apple orchards,Chauhan said: “I have only a few hundred apple trees and I earn in lakhs. Virbhadra Singh has thousands of apple trees,his income is in crores. No one should have any doubt about it.”

In his December 2011 statement to the Income Tax department,Chauhan has said that he had signed an agreement with Singh in June 2008 to manage his orchard spread over 105 bighas of land. “As per the agreement,I was to be paid a commission @ 2 per cent. I did not get any payment in 2008-09. The agreement ended in 2011,I received a part payment of Rs 10 lakhs. The rest was also paid later before March 31,2012,” he has said in the statement.

In the five-page statement,Chauhan has detailed the expenses he incurred in managing Singh’s orchard which had 3,200 apple trees. He has also claimed that he bought the insurance policies for Singh and his family through the money earned from the farm. “I used to deposit the income from the sale of apples in the bank in cash and also through cheques,” Chauhan said.