Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 20: Despite repeated directions from the State High Court, the vigilance investigation into the multi-crore Roshni Scam, which has caused huge loss to the State exchequer, is going on at snail’s pace resulting into accused officers and officials remaining scot-free. What to talk of lodging more FIRs into the scam, even there is no substantial progress in the already registered cases.
This can be gauged from the official document signed by Sheikh Owais Ahmad, Director of State Vigilance Organization, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR.
The multi-crore land scam was unearthed by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India and subsequently the issue was brought to the notice of the State High Court. Various directions were issued by the High Court from time to time for ensuring submission of relevant record by the Deputy Commissioners of six districts—Jammu, Samba, Udhampur, Srinagar, Budgam and Pulwama, which were initially taken up for investigation.
After the intervention of the High Court and on the basis of findings arrived at in verification No.SVO-Veri-JMU-52, five FIRs were registered by the State Vigilance Organization on May 29, 2014 for investigation through Special Investigation Teams (SITs).
However, no major progress has been made in these five cases despite the lapse of nearly five months and Vigilance Organization has failed to zero-in on all those officers and officials, who were involved in these five cases whereby Roshni scheme was abused in order to confer undue benefits upon occupants of State land.
As far as FIR No.17/2014 registered with Police Station Vigilance Organization Kashmir against officers and officials of Revenue Department of district Srinagar is concerned, only the receipt registers and “some” files regarding vesting of ownership rights have been seized, the official document said. No doubt, statements of some employees of the office of Assistant Commissioner (Nazool) Srinagar have also been recorded under Section 161 CrPC but what transpired from their statements remains a mystery.
Moreover, the names of the erring officers and officials particularly the then District Collector, who were involved in arbitrarily fixing the price of land lower than the prevailing market rate, have neither been disclosed nor included in the FIR.
Similarly, the alleged accused in FIR No.15/2014 registered with Police Station Vigilance Organization Jammu have been examined in the course of investigation with regard to signatures on the file and documents but scrutiny of seized record and verification of entries in the files has yet not been completed. Only the then District Collector Jammu, Hirdesh Kumar has found mention in the FIR and other accused officers and officials have yet not found mention in the FIR as such there is no substantial progress in this case too for zeroing in on all the accused public servants.
According to the document, the case FIR No.18 pertaining to bungling in district Pulwama is still at initial stage despite the fact that it was registered five months back. “The scrutiny of the records, spot inspection and examination of questioned documents/records by a revenue expert is required to be done”, the document said but it is silent about why the expert has not been engaged till date. Moreover, this FIR too remains open with no mention of the names of the then District Collector and accused officers and officials of the Revenue Department, who were instrumental in causing loss to State exchequer.
As far as FIR No.16/2014 pertaining to vesting of ownership rights to the non-State subject persons in Udhampur district is concerned, the document said, “the record seized by the Vigilance Organization from the office of Deputy Commissioner on August 22, 2014 is under scrutiny”. However, it is silent as to why this exercise was not conducted earlier despite reluctance from the concerned authorities of Revenue Department. Similar is the fate of FIR No.19 pertaining to ‘fraud’ in Budgam district.
Moreover, the blame game with the Deputy Commissioners about production of record is still continuing with Director Vigilance stating in the document that Deputy Commissioner Udhampur didn’t respond to the correspondence regarding submission of original record. Similarly, he has stated that the receipt registers are yet to be received despite repeated reminders to the Deputy Commissioner Budgam.
“In such a condition when the Vigilance Organization would be able to take these FIRs to the logical conclusion and start laying focus on cases other than those brought to the fore by the Comptroller and Auditor General on test checked basis is a million dollar question”, sources said.
Despite repeated calls to ascertain the reasons behind the snail’s pace progress in the land scam, Director Vigilance didn’t respond while as another senior officer refused to speak on the subject.
Follow our WhatsApp channel