NEW DELHI, May 27: Former Chief Minister of Haryana and Indian National Lok Dal leader Om Prakash Chautala was sentenced to four years' rigorous imprisonment on Friday after conviction in a disproportionate assets case.

The Delhi CBI court had convicted the former Haryana Chief Minister in the disproportionate assets case last Saturday. At 87, he will be the oldest inmate in Tihar jail.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had filed a chargesheet against Om Prakash Chautala on March 26, 2010 for allegedly amassing assets worth Rs 6.09 crore between 1993 and 2006, which is disproportionate to his legitimate income.

Om Prakash Chautala was released after completing his jail term in another case - the teacher recruitment scam - he was convicted alongwith his son Ajay Chautala on February 7 last year. Ajay Chautala was released from Tihar jail on February 10, 2022 after completing a 10-year term; he had earned a remission of 2 years. Both had been sentenced in a teacher recruitment scam in Haryana. A Delhi court had convicted 55 people on January 13, 2013, for illegally recruiting 3,206 basic teachers in Haryana in 1999-2000 when Om Prakash Chautala was the Chief Minister. The CBI was handed the probe after the Supreme Court received a petition by IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, who accused Chautala of taking bribes and forcing him to change the original list of selected teachers.

Ajay’s son, Dushyant Chautala, is currently Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP Government in Haryana.

Chautala's schooling at 87

Om Prakash Chautala is the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhary Devi Lal. Chautala has cleared Class 10 and 12 exams at the age of 87.

Chautala got the delayed mark sheets of Class 12 pass from the Board of School Education Haryana (BSEH), Bhiwani, on May 10 this year. His result was withheld on technical grounds.

In 2021 he had enrolled in the Class XII of the Haryana Open School of the BSEH. All the students were declared successful because of the covid pandemic, but his and five others' results were withheld. His result was withheld because he had not opted for English paper at Class 10, which is compulsory for Class 12 certificate, which he subsequently cleared later during the year.

Chautala had passed the Class 10 examination of the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), where English is not a compulsory subject, in 2017, while in the jail.

Now Chautala is back in jail again.