Chitleen
K Sethi : Mohali, Thu May 17 2012, 01:17 hrs
A
high-powered committee set up by the state government has found that
the lands owned by Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini and five other
senior officers were actually parts of the village common land
(shamlat/ mushtarkan malkan).
The
committee, formed to probe the nature of land owned by 60 VIPs in
Chandigarh’s periphery, found that apart from these six officers,
two others — retired bureucrat JS Kesar and former SSP, G S
Pherurai — have been shown to own land which is still, according to
the revenue records, part of the village shamlat deh.
Selling
and buying of shamlat deh land by private individuals is illegal
under the Punjab Village Common Land (Regulations) Rules, 1964. Also
division and subsequent sale of jumla mushtarkan malkan land is
illegal under The East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention
of Fragmentation) Act, 1948. Any such land deal amounts to the buyer
having committed fraud with the village panchayat which is the
custodian of all such lands.
The
committee’s report, prepared by the government following orders of
the Punjab and Haryana High Court was submitted to the chief
secretary on Friday.
The
report gathered by the Mohali deputy commissioner from the tehsil
offices in Kharar, Dera Bassi and Majri block, states that only eight
out of the 60 VIPs whose names were provided by the court owned or
ever owned public land.
Saini
owned 32 kanal 9 marla (a little more than 4 acres) land in Kansal
village. One acre (8 kanals) of this land was however sold vide
mutation number 3955. This land, states the DC’s report, was part
of the mushtakan malkan rasab hasab khewat (village common land) till
1986 when it was divided among the owners according to their
individual shares. Saini bought this land from these individuals a
decade later.
Similarly,
the state election commissioner Shivinder Singh Brar owns another 32
kanals adjoining Saini’s land in Kansal, which too was part of the
village common land till 1986.
JS
Kesar, a retired IAS officer of the state has been shown to own 58
kanals 5 marla of land in Tira village, which is shamlat deh
(indivisible village common land). Kesar has been issued eviction
orders by the block development and panchayat officer (BDPO), Majri
block, on May 4.
Former
SSP, G S Pherurai, also owns 15 kanal 12 marla shamlat deh land in
Dhanora village, also in the Majri block. He too was issued eviction
orders on May 4 by the BDPO. D S Dhillon, son of Lal Singh IAS,
Joginder Singh, Baldev Singh and Gurmeet Singh too have been shown to
own plots, which were once part of the village common land.
On
March 24, a division bench of acting Chief Justice MM Kumar and
Justice Alok Singh, which is hearing a petition on the acquisition of
property by the VIPs in Chandigarh’s periphery, had asked the
Punjab government to report whether land purchased by the 60
high-ranking officers and politicians was ever “public” land and
if anyone of them were in possession of shamlat/ forest/ panchayat/
nazrool land. The court had also asked the government on the measures
it had taken to get public land released from these officers.
The
60 VIPs under the scanner were named in the probe report of former
ADGP Punjab, Chandrashekhar as owning vast tracts of properties in
and around Chandigarh.
The
list shows Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as owning five acres of
land in Lohgarh village, his OSD Vishwajeet Khanna owning 21 acres in
Nimbuan village, a former chief engineer Manmohanjit Singh owning 38
acres in Nimbuan, a former IAS officer AS Chattha owning land in
Bishanpura, former DGP, Punjab, Gurbachan Singh Jagat owning land in
Bishanpura, Navtej Singh son of Balwant Singh Ramoowalia owning land
in village Chatt, Late Captain Kanwaljit Singh (Kishanpura), SS
Boparai (Kishanpura), Kewal Singh Dhillon (Kishanpura), SS Virk
(Dialpura, Bakarpur and Makhanmjra), Jagmohan Singh Kang and his
family (Dulwa), Balbir Singh Sidhu (Kurari), Surinder Pal Singh Virk
(Mohali).
Senior
IAS officer KBS Sidhu is shown to “own” two schools, including
the Small Wonders School in Mohali, in the name of Jasdeep Singh and
Mandeep Singh in the list. Interestingly, the three tehsils, which
were asked to go through the entries in the list and cross check them
with the relevant revenue records found that in many cases the
details in the list had no corroborative evidence in revenue records.
For
instance the list states that Sumedh Singh Saini owns the
“Saini-Farm” in village Sohana. He is shown to own another 6.5
acres in Sohana. The list also states that Saini is in illegal
possession of 377 kanal and 10 marla of shamlat land of village
Kansal. The report prepared for the High Court, however, shows that
according to the revenue records Saini owns only 32.9 kanals in
Kansal. No other land is shown to be owned by Saini. Similarly the
list names former DGP NPS Aulakh owning land in Mohali, which too was
not borne out by revenue records.
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2012 The Indian Express Limited. All rights reserved
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