A special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Panchkula on Tuesday granted bail to former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the Rs 1,500-crore Manesar land scam, The Tribune reported. The court asked Hooda to pay two sureties of Rs 5 lakh each.

The Congress leader’s son Deepinder Hooda, who represents Rohtak in the Lok Sabha, gathered outside the court complex along with 15 MPs and MLAs and a number of Hooda’s supporters. The former speaker of Haryana Assembly, Kuldeep Sharma, said the party would fight the battle in court and outside.

Hooda’s former principal secretaries Murari Lal Tayal and Chattar Singh, and the former director of the town and country planning department, SS Dhillon, were granted bail during the previous hearing on April 19, the Hindustan Times reported.

In August 2004, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government notified that it would acquire 912 acres in the villages of Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula in Gurugram to build an industrial township. Farmers then sold the plots to private builders at throwaway prices. The government revoked its order in August 2007, two days before it was supposed to announce the compensation package for farmers. This reportedly allowed private builders to profit from the plots.

In March, the Supreme Court accused the Hooda government of “mala fide exercise of power” and scrapped the 2007 notification.