Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 13: Taking serious note of the dilly dallying approach of the State Government in conducting investigation into land scam, Division Bench of State High Court comprising Justice Virender Singh and Justice Bansi Lal Bhat today granted one week’s time to the Secretary, General Administration Department for getting the enquiry conducted through Divisional Commissioner. The DB has made it clear that in case of further non-compliance the Secretary should cause his appearance in person on October 21, 2014.
The intentional delay into this land scam whereby 20 kanals and 12 marlas of land in Khasra Number 1442 situated at village Chatta, Sunjwan in Jammu district was allegedly encroachment by the SRK Associates is being caused by the officers concerned ever since this grave act came to their notice way back in 2008 and this was exclusively reported by EXCELSIOR in its edition dated October 12, 2014 mentioning that many heads may have rolled had this probe been conducted.
The Government vide Order No.05-GAD of 2008 dated January 1, 2008 had directed enquiry into the matter to be conducted by the then Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Sudhanshu Pandey but no serious efforts were made to expose the officers and officials, who maintained blind eye towards the alleged illegal act on the part of encroachers and retrieve the land from them.
For six years, the matter was allowed to remain under the carpet for obvious reasons and when the matter was brought to the notice of the State High Court through an application into the ongoing Public Interest Litigation relating to the grabbing of huge chunk of State land across Jammu and Kashmir, the Division Bench vide order dated August 5, 2014 sought Action Taken Report into this particular land scam.
But to the surprise of Division Bench, the General Administration Department informed that Inquiry Officer has not proceeded with the enquiry on the ground that Government Order No.5-GAD of 2008 was called in question in a petition filed by one of the partners of SRK Associates and status quo was directed to be maintained on spot.
However, the DB didn’t find any weightage in the submission and made it clear that the direction was only to maintain status quo and not for withholding the enquiry. Accordingly, the DB vide order dated September 10, 2014 directed Secretary GAD to get enquiry conducted through present Divisional Commissioner and examine whether there was any willful misinterpretation of the order dated April 7, 2008 to delay enquiry and fix responsibility accordingly.
But neither the responsibility was fixed nor the Divisional Commissioner was directed to conduct enquiry and the same invited sharp reaction from the Division Bench comprising Justice Virender Singh and Justice Bansi Lal Bhat today.
When the case came up for hearing, Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed, in the open court, submitted that the exercise of hushing up the scam, which was started way back in 2008, is still continuing for the obvious reasons and Secretary GAD has shown scant regard to the explicit direction of the Division Bench.
“It seems that Government doesn’t want officers involved in allowing encroachment of land to be exposed and punished”, he further said, adding “in the absence of enquiry nobody knows whether the encroached land has been utilized for the commercial activities or any other purpose for the gains of the encroachers”.
When DB sought to know the reason behind non-compliance of the directions, Senior Additional Advocate General, Gagan Basotra fairly took the responsibility upon himself in not informing the order dated September 10, 2014 to Secretary General Administration Department. “There was some communication gap”, he stated.
After hearing both the sides, DB observed, “it appears that the enquiry which was to be completed within a reasonable timeframe as directed by this court is being delayed intentionally”, adding “in short, the counsel for the CMA wants to project that the State is dilly dallying the matter intentionally in order to help the high ranking officials so that the entire matter is hushed up”.
Accordingly, the DB granted one week’s time for compliance of the order dated September 10, 2014 failing which the Secretary GAD shall cause his appearance in person on next date of hearing—October 21, 2014 to explain his conduct.
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