Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, who had categorically claimed while declaring CBI enquiry on alleged scam in widening of National Highway-74 calling it a crusade against corruption in which he would not care for anything unless and until investigation is complete or guilty get arrested, may face fiery scene inside the Assembly during budget session which is going to begin on June 8.
Talking to The Pioneer Pradesh Congress Committee president Preetam Singh said that the State Government had claimed this so the Congress was optimistic that guilty will be booked but now he has been backtracking so it means his words and action have two different meaning.
“Now the Congress will raise this issue inside the House because being an Opposition party it is our moral obligation to show mirror to the government whenever it goes off-track,” said Singh. He further said that State Government might claim that they have referred the case to CBI but the Congress would ask that why CBI is not taking up the case while the “double engine” system is in place.
Sources in the Government said that it is true that a Government recommendation has been sent to the CBI but it depends on the bureau’s process how they take action on it. Meanwhile State investigative agency has arrested Vikas, an ex reader of Jaspur sub divisional magistrate who has also been suspended, and seized a diary which contains various details about the NH-74 land deal. Sources said that the diary contains several names and if it becomes public then many more new names might be revealed.
During police raid the officials recovered few files which were missing since theft case was reported in the office concerned after notification for CBI enquiry. The files pertain to Bazpur, Jaspur and Kashipur Tehsils so the seizure has increased the inquisitiveness of everyone. Ironically the person arrested was a junior level employee but recovered goods are reportedly worth a crore of rupees . Although officially the value of goods seized has not been clarified, sources state that 750 gram gold and 1100 gram silver have recovered from his house.
Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had met union transport minister Nitin Gadkari in Delhi and apprised him about the state government decision. Although there is no official communiqué on this so there is no clarity on the talk between the senior leaders.
It will be recalled that the chief minister had announced that government has referred the case to CBI while having meeting with then Kumaon Commissioner D Sethil Pandian. Notably, the scam involving Rs 240 crore in 18 different cases had surfaced after Kumaon commissioner had submitted a report following a preliminary probe. It was learnt that the land use norms had been changed to ensure that the compensation amount was hiked around 25 times higher than the actual rate of compensation. What happened was that farm lands had been shown as commercial lands by some officials in cahoots with the syndicate comprising some high and mighty to favour some with inflated compensation amounts.
Now government has sidelined the bureaucrat who had revealed this nexus between officials and syndicate. In this circumstance, the action might be seen as government’s firefighting exercise before commencement of the Vidhan Sabha session.
CM Rawat had earlier claimed that nobody, however powerful, whether in politics or in bureaucracy, would be spared if he or she was found guilty of corruption. He had claimed that the fraud had been done in an extremely professional manner in cahoots with a mighty syndicate with nets spread wide. Alive to the gravity of the fraud, he had said that SIT probe was being wound up to facilitate the entry of the premier national probe agency CBI. He had further said that more heads would roll in the coming days while adding that the prompt suspension of the accused officers was an imperative to deter them from tampering with the official documents.
The six officers who were suspended had been posted in these four tehsils- Jaspur, Kashipur, Bazpur and Sitarganj. They are Dinesh Pratap Singh, land certification officer; Anil Kumar Shukla, special land certification officer and four SDMs, including SS Jangpangi, Jagdish lal, Bhagat Singh Fonia and NS Naganyal. Besides, Himalay Singh Martolia, a retired officer, was also mentioned by the CM as an accused in the scam.