Two more FIRs linked to the ₹25,000-crore Roshni land scam have been registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against the Revenue Department officials and others in the Srinagar district of Jammu and Kashmir, taking the total number of cases to seven so far.
One Sajad Parvez has been named in the first case, apart from unknown Revenue officials. In 2007, an empowered committee under the now repealed Roshni Act had granted ownership rights of State land measuring seven ‘kanals’ and seven ‘marlas’ to him under commercial category, at the rate of ₹45 lakh per ‘kanal’.
A vigilance inquiry later found that under the Act, Mr. Parvez was not an occupant and could not have been given the ownership rights. He was only an authorised agent of the original occupants, Ashok Sharma and Bipan Sharma, by virtue of a special power of attorney. Despite this, the empowered committee allowed his proprietorship.
A ground report and the site plan clearly showed that out of the leased land, a portion was hit by the Ribbon Development Act. This fact was not taken into account
Also, the empowered committee in its meeting on April 28, 2007, decided the case under the commercial category. However, the subsequent committee, while acting on the complaint of the beneficiary, changed the category to residential in August that year. It did not determine the nature of land usage from field officials.
In the case of adjoining properties, the empowered committee had fixed a rate of ₹65 lakh per ‘kanal’. Therefore, it is alleged that the land given to Mr. Parvez could have fetched about ₹2.15 crore to the exchequer under commercial category, instead of a little over ₹1.17 crore paid by the beneficiary. Thus, the Revenue officials caused a loss of close to ₹1 crore to the exchequer.
The second FIR is against unknown public servants and others, and pertains to the instances where proper procedure was not adopted while disposing of cases of illegal occupants for vesting ownerships in Srinagar.
In many cases where the recovery rates had been fixed by the competent authority, they were not remitted to the exchequer. In a particular case, the ownership was given at the rate of ₹48 lakh per ‘kanal’, whereas the then prevailing market rate was ₹70 lakh.