Puri Collector Arabind Agarwal, head of the nine-member committee probing into the Swargadwar cremation land scam on Thursday submitted an interim report to RDC AB Ota.
Agrawal informed the media that out of about 135 suspected land transaction records till date, only 85 were examined and fraud was detected in 65 cases. More time is needed to verify documents from various departments to complete the investigation, he said.
Ota informed the media that the committee scanned revenue records from the year 1899 till 1999 relating to 16 acre and 735 decimal of land which belonged to the Shree Jagannath Temple and later in course of time were grabbed by several persons. The interim report reveals fraud involving 2.5 acre.
This apart, 145 individuals have occupied 4.65 acre of land with orchard (bagayat) status.
The RDC directed the Puri Tehisldar to record these lands in favour of the temple within three weeks.
The RDC also discussed with Inspector General of Police Soumendra Priyadarshi to initiate criminal cases against the individuals occupying land by means of forged documents.
This interim report would be submitted to Government for further action while the investigating team was asked to complete the probe as early as possible, added the RDC.
