Three weeks back, CM ML Khattar had said that a CBI probe would be ordered in two cases where plans for land acquisition were dropped during Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s tenure as CM in the districts of Rohtak and Sonipat.
The Haryana government said Thursday that the probe into the Rohtak land case would be handed over to the CBI after an inquiry by a retired judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court. A senior officer of the Chief Minister Office (CMO) told The Indian Express that Justice (retired) RS Madan has been entrusted with the inquiry.
Three weeks back, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said in the state Assembly that a CBI probe would be ordered in two cases where plans for land acquisition were dropped during Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s tenure as CM in the districts of Rohtak and Sonipat. “We will take a decision about the Sonipat case,” said the officer.
The then IAS officer Rajan Gupta had already conducted a probe in Rohtak’s case and submitted his report last year. However, the government has termed his report as “incomplete” and said “it cannot be accepted in toto”.
In his report, Gupta had termed the matter as “a failure of the system” but had not fixed responsibility on anybody. “Specific persons out of the scores of officers and officials belonging to several wings of the government cannot be pin-pointed for attributing malafides to them. No single individual or department took the decision at his/her own level. They all got support from the opinions of cross-section of institutions,” Gupta had stated in the report.
Post-retirement, Gupta is currently chairperson of Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA), Panchkula.
The land deal
In Rohtak’s case, Uddar Gagan Properties Limited, a builder-cum-developer, entered into collaboration agreements with some of the farmers and land owners whose land was under acquisition, on March 2, 2005, to develop a colony. The builder, in March 2005, made applications to the Haryana Town and Country Planning Department for grant of licence to develop a colony on land covering 280 acres.
The licences were granted in June 2006 and the land in question was eventually released from acquisition. The licences were addressed to the land owners but remitted to the builder. This was followed by execution of sale deeds in favour of the builder through power of attorney.