Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 17: High Court today referred the petition alleging hushing up of Chatta-Sunjwan land scam to the Chief Justice for requisite orders.
After hearing Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed appearing for the petitioner-Prof S K Bhalla and scanning the records appended with the petition, Justice Tashi Rabstan observed, “the issue involved in the petition seems to be of public interest. As such, the matter is required to be placed before the Division Bench by treating it as Public Interest Litigation after obtaining orders from the Chief Justice”.
Accordingly, Justice Rabstan directed the Registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice for requisite orders.
“The petitioner is fully convinced that no enquiry was conducted by Sudhanshu Pandey, the then Divisional Commissioner, Jammu pursuant to Govt. Order dated 01-01-2008 and a major land scam was hushed up for conferring undue benefit upon an influential colonizer— SRK Associates”, Advocate Ahmed said.
“Not only this, the erring officials responsible for various acts of omission and commission escaped from the dragnet of law due to the non-holding of enquiry in the matter”, he said, adding “the respondents are required to be held accountable for hushing up the land scam and they are also answerable to this Court as to why the enquiry was not conducted and who were those behind shielding the colonizer and the erring officials involved in the matter”.
“In order to lift the veil and to inspire confidence in the probe, the matter is required to be entrusted to CBI as the State machinery connived with the colonizer for stalling the enquiry and thus a time bound probe is need of the hour so that the guilty are identified and punished in accordance with law”, the counsel for the petitioner said.
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