Probe indicts revenue officials in land scam

Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, December 20

Several revenue officials, including a naib tehsildar, three kanungos and four patwaris, and some sarpanches have been indicted in an inquiry conducted by Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Vineet Kumar into the NH-15 scam which allegedly caused loss to the tune of crores of rupees to the state exchequer.

A retired SDM-rank official and his staff members have also been reportedly found guilty.

In his report, the ADC has brought out several startling discrepancies during the acquisition of land for the construction of National Highway-15 from Amritsar to Bathinda in Zira sub-division.

These include payment to deceased land owners, erroneous calculation of compensation, change in type of land from agricultural to commercial, variation in payment to owners with the same share in landholding and payment to farmers whose land had already been acquired.

Sources said at Khadoor village, land owners were paid Rs 2.45 crore for the land which had already been acquired as the previous mutation (number 1,635) had not been executed.

Similarly at Sihapari village, farmers were paid Rs 1.45 crore extra by showing the land as commercial instead of agricultural.

The inquiry also revealed that the land owners were given payments without checking their identity proofs due to which payment was “released” to several dead persons.

In at least three cases at Khadoor, the actual land owners — identified as Boor Singh and two brothers Fhuman Singh and Ghuman Singh — had already died, but the money was allegedly shown deposited in their account and later withdrawn.

In the same village, Sadha Singh and Dalsher Singh, who had 50 per cent share in the notified land, were paid Rs 4.69 lakh whereas Sukhchain Singh, who had one-fourth share, was also paid the same amount. Uttam Singh, who owned the remaining quarter share, was paid Rs 30.22 lakh.

In another case, Inderjit Singh was paid Rs 6.56 lakh for one-third share of land and Gurbachan Singh was allegedly paid Rs 22.82 lakh for his one-tenth share.

Malkit Singh, panchayat member, Khadoor, who has filed an RTI application for information on the matter, claimed that if a proper inquiry was conducted, a scam amounting to several crores of rupees would surface.