Times of
India: Jalandhar: Wednesday, June 26, 2019.
The
state vigilance bureau (VB) has filed a cancellation report in the Hoshiarpur
land acquisition case, in which a PCS officer, three SAD leaders and nine
others were booked in February 2017 for allegedly ensuring excess payment of
compensation for a tract of land which was to be acquired for widening a
national highway.
In
the FIR, registered after investigation of a few months, the economic offences
wing of the VB had pegged the loss to state exchequer at Rs 58.58 crore.
The
VB, in its investigation before registering the FIR, had claimed that SAD
leaders and others of taking more than the price valued for their land by
changing its category from agriculture to commercial. The wrongdoing, it had
claimed, was that the change had been made after the notification was issued
for acquisition of land.
The
accused are: PCS officer and former Hoshiarpur SDM Anand Sagar Sharma, SAD
councillor Harpinder Singh Gill, former district cooperative bank chairman
Satwinderpal Singh Dhatt, Hoshiarpur Market Committee former chairman Avtar
Singh Johal, Hoshiarpur residents Parteek Gupta and Jaswinderpal Singh, and
either others.
The
cancellation report has been filed before duty judge, Ludhinana, as the court
is on break for the summer vacation. Additional sessions judge T S Bindra had
on June 14 noted that an application for grant of permission to file and
entertain the cancellation report during summer vacation had been filed. “In
view of the contents mentioned in the application, the prosecution is permitted
to file the present cancellation report during summer vacation,” the order said
while registering the cancellation report.
Issuing
the notice of the cancellation report to complainant DSP Niranjan Singh of the
VB’s Jalandhar unit for July 7, 2019, the additional sessions judge also
ordered that the file be put before the sessions judge of Ludhiana on that date
for further proceedings.
It
is learnt that the cancellation report has been filed after approval from the
VB headquarters as the case appeared on weak ground after the accused had moved
the Punjab and Haryana high court, which appointed a court commissioner to get
a ground report. When contacted, DSP Niranjan confirmed that the cancellation
report had been filed by the SSP of VB’s economic offences wing in Ludhiana.
However, SSP Paramjit Singh Virk could not be contacted for comment as his
mobile phone was switched off.
The
case was registered after Hoshiarpur-based RTI activist Rajiv Vashisht sent a
complaint to the Prime Minister’s office after procuring information under the
RTI Act. It was after the PMO referred the complaint to Punjab additional chief
secretary N S Kalsi asking for holding an inquiry and report back that Punjab
CM ordered a probe.
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