A bizarre case of corruption in the Revenue Department has come to light albeit only after the Revenue officers slept over it for eight long years. Perhaps the case of corruption in which Government land has been entered falsely in the name of two persons in Garkhal and Kanachak villages would have remained submerged if a conscientious social activist had not vowed to bring the culprit to book. The culprit in this case is nobody other than the Patwari of the Halqa concerned who has violated all standing orders as well as rules only to perpetrate fraud on the department.
In the year 1994-95, the Forest Department raised a plantation closure on the land retrieved due to change of course of Chenab River in these villages. The closure was raised over 460 kanals of land in Khasra No.609 min at village Rajpura (Marh). However, in the year 2006, the then Patwari Bodh Raj Sharma clandestinely and by abusing his official position and in contravention of the directions issued by the Financial Commissioner J&K recorded the illegal possession of two encroachers in respect of 40 kanals of land, which was part of the forest closure comprised in revenue records. Ever since the recording of illegal entry of 40 kanals in favour of two land grabbers, a public spirited person feeling the burden of his conscience approached almost all higher officials, MLAs, Ministers and Departmental Heads apprising them of the false recording by the Patwari and favouring two land grabber with huge landed property. Nobody responded till he threatened the authorities that he would file a PIL in the High Court. It was only then that the fraud was unearthed.
We recommend some measures. First, the responsibility of fraudulent entry in these records should be fixed. After that proper departmental and legal action should be taken against the defaulters including those who connived at the fraud. Second, a mechanism should be evolved in the Revenue Department that recurrence of frauds like these does not happen again.
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