Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 11: The High Court has dismissed the petitions of the then Assistant Revenue Commissioner and other person seeking quashing of FIR registered against them for transferring the land under Roshni Act illegally.
The Anti Corruption Bureau upon information had registered FIR against the then Assistant Commissioner Revenue Budgam-Ravinder Kumar and the beneficiary-Mian Mohammad Mujtaba for illegally transferring the land and also changing the nature of the land.
Both the petitioners having aggrieved of registration of FIR and the investigation taken up by ACB challenged the same on various grounds.
Justice Sanjeev Kumar after hearing both the parties dismissed both the petition. “I do not feel inclined to accept these petitions and the same are accordingly, dismissed”, Justice Kumar concluded.
It was pursuant to the observations of the Principal Accountant General (Audit), made in its Audit Report with regard to irregularity found in the transfer of land under J&K State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to Occupants) Act 2001(Roshni Act) the Anti Corruption Bureau embarked upon the verification of such allegations and found the officers/officials of Revenue Department in District Budgam, were found to have misused and abused their official position as public servants and conferred undue pecuniary benefits upon illegal occupants of the State land by arbitrarily fixing the price of the land, that i.e lower than the prevailing rate of the area.
It was also found that with a view to confer undue benefit upon unauthorised occupant(s) even classification of the land measuring 4 kanals 1 marlas was changed unauthorizedly resulting into huge financial loss to the State exchequer.
On the basis of these allegations, having been confirmed in the preliminary verification, the impugned FIR came to be registered.
“I find that no case is made out to quash the FIR impugned or the investigation undertaken by respondents. The petitioners in both the petitions have not been able to demonstrate as to whether the averments made in the FIR, even if taken to be correct on their face value, do not disclose commission of cognizable offence”, read the judgment.
Court said the facts revealed during the investigation prima facie point towards the acts and omissions of the then Assistant Commissioner Revenue in the matter of issuing the allotment order in favour of beneficiary and charging of lesser amount payable under Roshni Act and Rules framed there-under.
Court, however, with regard to conduct of the investigation by ACB said, the same is far from satisfactory. It is not in dispute, court said, that it is clearly discernible from the records that the case of beneficiary for vesting of ownership rights processed from the office of Tehsildar, Chadoora, was placed before the Committee, constituted under Roshni Act in meeting held on 19th March 2010.
The committee also determined the market value of the land vide communication dated 5th April 2010 but no sincere effort appears to have been made by Investigating Agency to trace out the said communication, which as per the prosecution is missing from the office of the Deputy Commissioner.
“The I.O. should have taken pains to seize all the records pertaining to the cases considered on 19th March 2010 to find out the manner in which the rates have been worked out by the committee”, the court recorded.
From records, court said, it is found that there is some inter se communications between ACB and the office of Deputy Commissioner, Budgam, but no sincere and serious effort has been made to trace the said document, which, if traced, would have vital impact on the investigation.
“The I.O. has also not added the charge of Section 201 RPC for destruction of evidence. Be that as it may, all these questions can only be looked into by the trial court, once charge-sheet is presented”, the court pointed out.
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