Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 31: In the much publicized Public Interest Litigation (PIL) highlighting alleged hushing up of Chatta Sunjwan land scam, Division Bench of the State High Court comprising First Puisne Judge Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice B S Walia today directed the Senior AAG S S Nanda appearing on behalf of the Revenue Department to submit the status report with regard to the outcome of the departmental inquiry initiated against two officers namely Mohd Iqbal Zargar, the then Patwari Halqa Sunjwan presently Naib-Tehsildar Thathri and Mohan Singh Patwari, then posted in Sunjwan area.
When this PIL came up for hearing, Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed with Advocates Rahul Raina and Suraj Singh appearing for the petitioner drew the attention of the court towards the fresh status report filed by Crime Branch Jammu wherein it was submitted that some more persons acquainted with the matter have been summoned for questioning besides some more records are to be collected in order to ascertain as to how and why the nature of the land with regard to the ownership was changed.
“The record pertaining to land has not been sufficiently provided by the revenue authorities and some record is still awaited. Besides the officers/ officials who had remained associated with the conduct of enquiry/ demarcation at the relevant time have not turned up so far for their examination as to how they have reached to the certain conclusion without going through the record”, the report of Crime Branch said.
According to the status report, despite issuing repeated messages vide No.AH/16/7017 dated 22-04-2016 and No.5306 dated 22-03-2016 the then ACR, Jammu Sher Singh, presently posted as SDM Mendhar, failed to attend the Crime Branch for recording his statement and clarifying the records for which the Preliminary Verification (PV) is still under progress.
Advocate Ahmed submitted, “the status report is nothing except the cyclostyle copy of the previous status report filed by Crime Branch on March 28, 2016”, adding “there is no headway in the verification and Crime Branch is shielding the accused involved in the land scam”.
“Why the Crime Branch has not disclosed in the status report the names of the officers of the Revenue Department who are not providing the relevant records required for the verification”, he asked, adding “entire record is in the office of Deputy Commissioner Jammu and deliberately the delay is being caused to screen the offenders”. He further submitted that for speeding up the enquiry the Crime Branch is required to be pulled up as the matter was entrusted by the GAD to the Crime Branch way back in August 2015.
Advocate Ahmed strenuously argued that the Apex Court in the much publicized case of Lalita Kumari V/s State of UP has held that preliminary enquiry in a corruption case should not exceed 15 days but in the present case despite the lapse of a year the Crime Branch is just exchanging letters with the Revenue Department for collecting the records. He further submitted that accused involved in the land scam are highly influential and have the tendency to prevail upon the investigation.
After going through the status report and hearing counsel for the PIL, DB observed in the open court, “the court time is over but looking into the importance of the matter the Registry is directed to list this PIL on September 5”.
At this stage, Advocate Ahmed further submitted that Senior AAG S S Nanda has not filed the status report with regard to the outcome of the departmental action against the two revenue officials in terms of Division Bench order dated July 29, 2016. On this, Senior AAG S S Nanda informed the Division Bench that both the officials have been charge-sheeted.
However, the Division Bench directed the Senior AAG to file the status report in this regard. Senior Advocate L K Sharma with Advocate Gurupartap Singh appeared for SRK Associates whereas Senior AAG Seema Shekhar appeared on behalf of Crime Branch Jammu.
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