HC upholds orders summoning additional accused in land scam

Five years after an FIR was registered against Haryana’s former chief minister and 16 others, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld an order passed by the CBI Special Judge summoning Amit Katyal as an additional accused to face trial. "It clearly transpires that there is sufficient incriminating evidence requiring the present petitioner to face the trial, along with other co-accused,” Justice Kuldeep Tiwari asserted.

The Bench observed that as per the FIR, some of the accused coloniser companies fraudulently entered into a criminal conspiracy with the then chief minister, the minister in-charge of Directorate of Town and Country Planning, and another during 2007-12 with the intent to cheat landowners, public at large, and the State.

In pursuance of the conspiracy, notifications under Sections 4 and Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act were issued in Gurugram. The landowners were compelled to sell their land to the coloniser at a lower price than prevalent before the notification was issued under Section 4 and “fraudulently and dishonestly obtained letter of intents/licence on the notified land and caused loss to the land owners, public at large and the State of Haryana, and made corresponding wrongful gain to themselves”.

The Bench noted: “It further transpired during the preliminary inquiry that in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy, the coloniser companies, which had in possession land in their own names, at the time of issuance of notification under Section 4 applied for LoI/Licence and managed to get the respective land released from the acquisition process as they had deep nexus with the officials of the department concerned.”

Justice Tewari said the court examined all the incriminating evidence and was of the view that there was sufficient incriminating evidence, requiring the petitioner, the director of the company, to face trial along with the other co-accused.

Prima facie, the court also found incriminating evidence against the petitioner, who, since the inception and till the end, played an active role in conspiracy with the other co-accused not only to obtain the LoI, but also to execute the collaboration agreements, Special Power of Attorney, General Power of Attorney, with the erstwhile landowners and caused financial huge loss to them.