RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 28: The Enforcement Directorate officials today started questioning Jharkhand High Court senior advocate Himanshu Kumar Mehta in the army land scam in the Jharkhand capital.
Former Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan and Kolkata businessman Amit Agarwal among others have already been arrested in this case.
His questioning started after Mehta turned up at the probe agency’s regional office at Hinoo after he was summoned.
It is being alleged that it was Mehta who made Jayant Karnad entitled to rent the land occupied by the army with the help of false documents and took a large part of the amount received from the sale of the land.
His name surfaced after the ED summoned Karnad and sought information regarding the documents used in the illegal land deal and the latter named Mehta saying he was his lawyer and all the documents were with him.
The ED’s primary investigation revealed that Karnad’s documents and claims presented by advocate Mehta in the Jharkhand High Court were false. The probe agency observed that Mehta deliberately withheld specific facts before the High Court, as the Army itself was looking for the rightful claimant to pay the rent.
The ED probe suggested that advocate Mehta concealed the fact before the high court that the petitioner Karnad did not have the succession certificate, which was required by the defence. It suggested that Karnad and Mehta together obtained favourable orders from the Jharkhand High Court by producing papers or evidence which could prove Karnad’s succession to the property.
