Gulmarg land scam
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 18: In the much-publicized Gulmarg land scam, High Court has allowed the revision petition filed by former Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Mehboob Iqbal against the order dated March 31, 2018 passed by 1st Additional District Judge/ Special Judge, Anti-Corruption whereby permission to place on record certain documents was declined and matter was fixed for arguments on the framing of charge.
While allowing the revision petition, Justice M K Hanjura observed, “it is not a case where the respondent-State had not relied upon these documents but the respondent (SVO), by playing a mischief in concealing and deliberately withholding them so that the court is incapacitated to look into their contents, placed only the covering letter of the Law Department before the court in which a mention has been made of Annexures but the same have not been attached to the file”.
Justice Hanjura further observed, “it was the duty of the trial court to find out whether the report laid in terms of Section 173(2) of the CrPC is in order when the reference was placed to Annexures in the covering letter attached to the file. Annexures were, thus, a part of the record and the SVO had to be directed to produce these documents before the court”.
The VOK submitted the final investigation report to the GAD and the same was referred to the Law Department for legal opinion and the legal opinion was given by the Law Department which was conveyed by the GAD to the IGP SVO on September 16, 2016 and the Law Department directed the VOK to apprise the trial court about the documents marked as Annexures attached to the revision petition and these documents unequivocally stated that Roshini Act is applicable to the land held by the Gulmarg Development Authority and also that no case is made out against the petitioners and no criminality can be attributed to the petitioners for having held the Act applicable. The VOK chose to steal the same from the scrutiny of the Special Judge Anti-Corruption.
After hearing Senior Advocate B A Bashir with Advocate Sheikh Faraz Iqbal appearing for Mehboob Iqbal and AAG N H Shah appearing for VOK whereas Advocate Azhar-ul-Amin appearing for private respondents, Justice Hanjura further observed, “the trial judge by rejecting the application of the petitioner and by posting the matter for arguments on charge, has virtually re-wrote his own order and has passed the order in derogation of the directions of the High Court and the earlier order dated June 25, 2016 passed by the same court which depicts a patent abuse of power and transgression of limits, as a consequence of which, serious prejudice and irreparable loss has been caused to the petitioner and the proforma respondents”.
With these observations, Justice Hanjura quashed order dated March 31, 2018 and further directed that the record produced by the Vigilance Organization before this court along with the trial court record shall be remitted to the trial court and the trial court shall hear the arguments on charge and discharge.
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