VB files cancellation report in Rs 59 crore Hoshiarpur land scam

Jalandhar: 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.