Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Apr 22: More than three months after the Government had handed over multi-crore Roshni land scam to the State Vigilance Organisation (SVO), there has been not much headway in the investigations as the concerned Deputy Commissioners and Revenue Officials have not submitted the record to the investigating agency.
“Gravity of the scam notwithstanding, the Vigilance Organisation was still awaiting record from five Deputy Commissioners despite reminders,” official sources told the Excelsior.
They said the special teams set up by the Vigilance Organisation have examined some cases but in the absence of record, no breakthrough has been made so far. “We have received some record from the Deputy Commissioner, Samba while the record from Jammu, Udhampur, Srinagar and Budgam districts was yet to be received,” they added.
They said some of the Deputy Commissioners have conveyed to the Vigilance Organisation that they were busy in the conduct of Lok Sabha elections as they had either been appointed as the Returning Officers (ROs) or the District Election Officers (DEOs) and in view of this they were unable to devote time in collecting and sending the record.
Now when the elections were over in Jammu region, the Vigilance Organisation has reminded the Deputy Commissioners to expedite the submission of record. However, as far as Srinagar and Budgam districts are concerned, the Vigilance was expecting the record only after the electoral process was completed on Srinagar Lok Sabha seat on April 30.
“In the absence of record, the cases can’t be investigated. For lodging the first FIR, we need evidence, which can be found only in the records. Unless the record comes, we won’t be in a position to register the FIR and go ahead with the cases,” sources said.
They, however, disclosed that the Vigilance Organisation has taken up investigations in some of the high profile cases on its own and were investigating them. But they admitted that no FIR has been lodged so far.
The Excelsior had exclusively reported that the Principal Auditor General of India had pointed out gross irregularities, which might run into several hundreds of crores in just six districts of the State alone, which had been audited under the Roshni scheme. The PAG of India had submitted his findings of the audit immediately to the State Government, which referred the entire scam to the State Vigilance Commission (SVC), which, in turn, had asked the SVO for detailed investigations.
“After going through the irregularities, the SVC had prime-facie found large scale bungling in Roshni scheme with involvement of senior officers of the administration including the Deputy Commissioners, which have been pointed out by the Principal Auditor General in his urgent report submitted to the State Government. The SVC had directed the Vigilance Organisation to initiate legal action after registering a First Information Report (FIR) in the case,” sources said.
Sources said different modus operandi had been used by the then Deputy Commissioners of six districts to dupe the State exchequer and extend benefits running into several hundreds of crores to land mafia, businessmen, political leaders and other influential persons apart for themselves.
In some of the cases, commercial land was shown as residential while residential land was shown as agriculture to benefit the individuals, who happened to be businessmen, politicians, other influential persons etc. Worthwhile to mention here that agriculture land had zero rates while there was vast difference of rates to be charged for residential and commercial land for conferring rights of land under the Roshni scheme.
In some of the instances, certain influential persons were allowed to make payment for conferring title of land on them under the Roshni scheme. In one of the cases, a businessman was allowed to deposit Rs 2 crores after three years, thus, allowing him to use the money for business purposes or investment in the banks and earn interests on them.
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