*Rules do not fix time frame for SVC to recommend action
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 16: State Vigilance Organization (SVO) is all set to register five more FIRs in the infamous Roshni Land Scam as verification into 294 instances of abuse of the scheme being conducted by the Special Investigation Teams (SITs) is at the final stage.
Highly placed official sources told EXCELSIOR that State Vigilance Organization is conducting verification into 294 more instances of abuse of the much talked about Roshni Scheme and on the completion of same within next 15 days more FIRs would be lodged against delinquent officers and officials of the Revenue Department as well as IAS and KAS officers besides non-deserving beneficiaries.
They disclosed that verification is going on into 117 instances of abuse of the scheme in Jammu district, 54 instances of Udhampur and 23 of Samba districts in Jammu province and 50 instances each of Baramulla and Bandipora districts in Kashmir valley.
It has come to the fore during these verifications that provisions of the Roshni Scheme were blatantly misused by the concerned officers in order to confer undue benefits upon the non-deserving people for monetary and other considerations.
“The nature of allegations are change of land title for conferring undue benefit upon the illegal occupants of the State land, allotment of land to unauthorized people and charging far less amount as compared to prevailing market rate in the specific area”, sources said. It has also come to light that those officers, who had to ensure strict compliance to the provisions of the Roshni scheme either maintained blind eye towards abuse of the scheme or intentionally helped the non-deserving people.
Disclosing that one FIR each would be lodged in respect of instances of abuse of scheme in Jammu, Udhampur, Samba, Baramulla and Bandipora districts, sources said, “State Vigilance Organization and the Special Investigation Teams (SITs) have been advised to include all the instances of each district in one FIR so as to avoid delay in completion of verification and investigation”.
In response to a question, they said that even the opinion of Law Department was obtained on lodging of multiple FIRs and it has been suggested that multiple FIRs in the instances of abuse of FIRs in a particular district would result into unnecessary delay in completion of probe. “The Law Department has categorically suggested covering of all instances of one district in one FIR”, they added.
The completion of investigation into five FIRs as proved and verification into 294 instances, which would culminate into registration of five more cases, has made it clear that no supervision was exercised at any level during the implementation of Roshni Scheme and district level officers left no stone unturned to throw into winds the provisions of the scheme, which has resulted into biggest ever land scam of Jammu and Kashmir running into thousands of crores of rupees.
Meanwhile, a million dollar question has arisen about further action into proved cases as Jammu and Kashmir State Vigilance Commission Rules, 2013 are silent about specific time-frame within which the Commission is required to forward the cases to the State Vigilance Organization for presentation of challan and obtaining prosecution sanction from the Government in case of in-service accused officers.
Rule 24(1) where under five cases have been submitted to State Vigilance Commission states: “When the Vigilance Organization concludes the investigation of the case and on the strength of evidence having come on record, a prima-facie case for commission of offence under Prevention of Corruption Act, is found established against in-service accused public servants, it shall, before sending the case to the sanctioning authority, prepare a final investigation report and submit the same along with the case diary file to the Commission for its advice”.
However, the Rules are silent about the time-frame within which the Commission is required to make its advice on the cases despite the fact that State Vigilance Organization is an investigation wing of the State Vigilance Commission.
This as well as issue of concealing the names of the accused officers and officials against whom allegations have been proved are likely to figure before the Division Bench of State High Court when the Public Interest Litigation on Roshni Land Scam
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