The High Court of Uttarakhand has given the State Government six weeks to file its reply in the petition filed by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials for removal of their names from the FIR lodged regarding the Rs 363 crore alleged scam related to national highway 74 in Udham Singh Nagar district. The matter was taken up for hearing before the single bench of justice lokpal Singh on Tuesday. The next hearing of the case is slated to be held on July 28.

According to the case details, the NHAI regional officer PC Arya, project director Ajay Vishnoi and Narendra Kumar filed a petition in the high court seeking that the FIR filed by the Udham Singh Nagar additional district magistrate Pratap Sah against them be quashed. According to the petitioners, officials of the state government conducted the land acquisition for widening of the national highway. The officials of the NHAI had no role to play in the scam in the said work. During the hearing, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Government of India, informed the court that the State Government had been informed in the past about the irregularities taking place in the acquisition of land. Representing the State Government, advocates Gajendra Sandhu and PS Bohra informed the court that the entire case was under investigation. The NHAI officials were not being arrested at this point of time. After hearing the arguments, the single bench of the high court directed the state government to file its reply in a period of six weeks.

It should be mentioned here that the alleged scam in widening work on National Highway 74 is one of the major issues on which the opposition led by the Congress is accusing the State Government of not doing enough on the lines of its stance of zero-tolerance against corruption.