An uneasy calm appears to prevail at the office of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was constituted to probe into the alleged land irregularities in Visakhapatnam district.
The SIT has completed its task of investigating the allegations about a month ago and still awaiting the nod from the State government for handing over the report.
It is learnt that the authorities concerned are yet to ask the SIT to submit its report and some influential persons have been approaching the SIT indirectly to get the names of those named in the report deleted.
As per reliable sources, the SIT has named around 25 to 30 prominent persons, including a few serving bureaucrats and senior government officials, former bureaucrats and senior officials and a few persons of repute in the city, who have been involved in the alleged land scams.
When the SIT was formed, the Government had committed that the investigation would be completed in three months and the report would be tabled. Thereafter, the report would be made public with transparency.
Now, the delay in submission of the report is raising suspicion, said former BJP MLA Vishnu Kumar Raju, who had represented a few cases to the SIT. The SIT that began its work in October 2019, initially comprised three members—former IAS officers Vijay Kumar and Y.V. Anuradha and retired district and sessions judge T. Bhaskara Rao.
The interim report was submitted to the government in February last year. And thereafter, the work was hit from March onwards in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.
Probe details
The SIT again began working from October and the report was ready by the November-end. The report was ready for submission by December first week.
The SIT primarily probed into allegations in six categories such as change of classification, tampering of records, encroachment of government land, grabbing of government land, allotment of government land to private individual and organisations and NoC issue to political sufferers and freedom fighter. Of the total of 1,400 representations received, SIT has cleared around 400 with its recommendations and observation. The other files have been sent to the authorities concerned in the Revenue Department for their clarifications and observation.
