Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 17: While disposing of the much publicized Public Interest Litigation (PIL) highlighting alleged hushing up of Chatta Sunjwan land scam, Division Bench of the State High Court comprising First Puisne Judge Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice B S Walia today directed the Director General of Police to monitor the ongoing probe being conducted by the Crime Branch Jammu.
The DB further directed the Crime Branch to conclude the probe in a non-partisan manner and also asked the General Administration Department to ensure that the probe by Crime Branch be concluded without any further delay. Though, the DB didn’t fix any time frame for completion of probe looking into the nature of the case, yet it asked the Investigating Officer to finalize the probe in a time bound manner.
After hearing Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed with Advocate Rahul Raina, appearing for the petitioner whereas Senior AAG Seema Shekhar for GAD and Crime Branch, Senior Advocate L K Sharma with Advocate Gurupartap Singh for SRK Associates, Senior Advocate M A Goni with Advocate Rahul Pant for newly impleaded Revenue officials, Advocates Adarsh Sharma and Monika Kohli for Jammu Development Authority, the Division Bench headed by Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar, in the open court, issued directions for de-linking of Miscellaneous Petition and asked the Registry to list it separately.
The Commissioner/ Secretary Housing and Urban Development Department and Vice-Chairman JDA were directed to respond to the Miscellaneous Petition within two weeks.
Earlier, when the PIL came up for hearing, Advocate S S Ahmed drew the attention of the Division Bench towards the last order passed on October 10, 2016 whereby Division Bench had directed Senior AAG Seema Shekhar to take up the matter with Deputy Commissioner Jammu as the Crime Branch in its status report had complained about the non-furnishing of the records by the revenue authorities.
He further submitted that Deputy Commissioner Jammu has filed a report indicating the compliance of the directions passed on October 3, 2016. He said that the petitioner on September 7, 2015 had filed a Miscellaneous Petition No.04/2015 wherein the directions were sought to the Chief Secretary, Commissioner/ Secretary GAD and Commissioner/Secretary Housing and Urban Development Department to initiate appropriate action against all those officers/officials of JDA who miserably failed to take action against M/s SRK Associates on the directions of the Administrative Department issued vide No.U&D/15/2008/JDA/AS-32 dated February 5, 2008.
He brought to the notice of the DB that in this case the Building Operation Controlling Authority of JDA minus the then VC JDA had disowned the permission granted to M/s SRK Associates and the Administrative Department had viewed the matter very seriously and after taking advise from the then Advocate General J&K had directed the then VC JDA to re-visit/put on hold the building permission granted in favour of the builder.
“Since the builder is highly influential and enjoying political connections as such the JDA did not take any action even after the lapse of almost 8 years. The matter is being hushed up just to shield some officers/officials of JDA who abused their official position to confer undue favour to M/s SRK Associates”, Advocate Ahmed said.
At this stage, Senior Advocate L K Sharma with Advocate Gurupartap Singh appearing for M/s SRK Associates submitted that the petitioner was protracting the litigation and the issue was never the part of the original relief claimed in the PIL. The senior counsel vehemently argued that a valid building permission was granted in favour of M/s SRK Associates and no interference was warranted in the matter.
Senior Advocate M A Goni with Advocate Rahul Pant appearing for the newly impleaded revenue officials apprised the Division Bench that the revenue officials have already been charge sheeted by the Financial Commissioner (Revenue) and they have submitted their statement of defense.
At this stage, the Division Bench after considering the submissions of Advocate S S Ahmed directed the Registry to list MP No.04/2015 separately after two weeks with a direction to the concerned respondents—Secretaries of Housing and Urban Development and GAD and Vice-Chairman JDA to respond to the Miscellaneous Petition.
With these observations and directions, the Division Bench disposed of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by directing the Director General of Police to monitor the ongoing probe into the land scam.
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