RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, March 27: The Jharkhand High Court today ordered that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) be named as a respondent in the PIL concerning ‘irregularities’ in the distribution of land compensation in Hazaribagh. The National Thermal Power Corporation is allegedly involved in the irregularities to the tune of Rs 3000 crore (NTPC).
Hearing the petition filed by Hazaribagh resident Mantu Soni, a division bench led by Chief Justice Sanjay Kumar Mishra issued the directive. The court that issued the order postponed the hearing in the case for two weeks.
Petitioner Soni, who was represented in the court by his advocates Abhishek Krishna Gupta and Madan Kumar, informed Lagatar24.com correspondent about the development, saying it was critical for a thorough investigation into the matter.
The PIL suggests that in 2016, on the recommendation of the then deputy commissioner Mukesh Kumar, the state government constituted a three-member special investigation team (SIT) after land-compensation-related irregularities came to the fore in Hazaribagh.
The SIT was headed by a team headed by a retired IAS officer Debashish Gupta. After the probe the SIT was informed about a land compensation scam involving Rs 3000 crore but despite this no action was taken in the matter so far except a few correspondences with NTPC managing director and Hazaribagh deputy commissioner. The SIT report has also not been made public.
The PIL suggests that compensation was distributed to many influential people on the basis of fake documents of government land for public use like cremation ground and school ground besides others.
According to the petitioner, the matter was also informed to the PMO but no action was taken in the matter. NTPC, according to the petitioner, in its clarification just said that the compensation has been distributed on the clearance of the state government but it is silent on the question whether it had done physical verification of land before distribution of compensation or not.
