Straight Line Network
Jammu, Oct 9: In the much-publicized Public Interest Litigation (PIL) highlighting encroachment of 20 lakh kanals of Government land in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Division Bench of the J&K High Court comprising of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Rajesh Bindal handed over the investigation of the said frauds of Rs 25000 crore to CBI.
The decision was pronounced by Division Bench of J&K High Court via videoconferencing today at 4:00 pm. Veteran Journalist Ahmed Ali Fayyaz tweeted, “This is the logical conclusion of the special audit of Roshni Scheme which we got done by CAG when Dr Ashok Bhan, myself and 5 other friends were members of CAG’s Advisory Committee for J&K in 2013.”
Roshni is J&K’s biggest land scam which involves extremely powerful politicians, bureaucrats, Revenue and Police officers, besides influential businessmen and political parties. After J&K HC order, all the 17 pending FIRs of ACB plus new FIRs will now be thoroughly investigated by CBI.
Prof SK Bhalla had filed a PIL in 2011 which got a new dimension with Adv Ankur Sharma’s petition seeking CBI probe on the basis of CAG report.
Two weeks ago, after hearing in length the arguments of Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed appearing for the PIL and Advocate Ankur Sharma appearing for the Application No. 48 of 2014, the Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Gita Mittal, in the open court held through virtual mode, expressed serious concern over the slackness on the part of Anti-Corruption Bureau in investigating the scam, which caused loss of several thousand crores of rupees to the exchequer of Jammu and Kashmir.
The DB also expressed anguish over slow pace of investigation in 10 out of 17 FIRs registered by the then State Vigilance Organization (presently Anti-Corruption Bureau). These FIRs are 8/2009 registered by Police Station Vigilance Organization Kashmir, 6/2014, 16/2014, 3/2015, 4/2015, 5/2015, 23/2015 registered by Police Station Vigilance Organization Jammu, 17/2014, 26/2015 and 18/2016 registered by Police Station Vigilance Organization Kashmir.
“It appears that those at the helm of affairs are not interested to ensure prosecution of the offenders”, the DB said and said that like Patnitop violations this case merits to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) so that entire Roshni land scam is completely unravelled.
Earlier, during the course of hearing Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed and Advocate Ankur Sharma submitted that Anti-Corruption Bureau has miserably failed to investigate 17 FIRs effectively and much delay has been caused.
“The Roshni land scam was unearthed by Comptroller and Auditor General of India and on the intervention of Accountant General J&K some test checked cases were picked up in six districts namely Anantnag, Jammu, Udhampur, Pulwama, Srinagar and Budgam”, Advocate Ahmed submitted, adding “the Accountant General had repeatedly indicated more than 500 test checked cases in these districts which were randomly taken up”.
It was pointed out by Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed that on the directions passed in the instant PIL the Divisional Commissioner Jammu and Divisional Commissioner Kashmir have already submitted multiple volumes of compilations mentioning that more than 20 lakh kanals of Government land is under encroachment in Jammu and Kashmir.
