SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, May 11: Opposition leader Babulal Marandi today demanded Chief Minister Hemant Soren to order a CBI probe into the multi-crore land scam that hit Jharkhand since creation of Jharkhand in 2000.
Marandi, who was chief minister of Jharkhand from November 15 2000 to March 18 2003, told this writer that the ED, probing the land scam in Ranchi, has its limitation. “It is probing only those cases in which illegally earned money through fraudulent transfer of land has been laundered. Moreover, it requires a pre-registered FIRs to launch a money laundering probe,” he pointed out.
The ex-chief minister said that the CBI happens to be the only competent agency which can bring land fraudsters to justice.
Justifying his demand, Marandi pointed out, “People are asking us this question on social media whether such a huge land scam has happened in just three years? It is appropriate for people to ask this question and ask for answers from us.”
“I believe that brokers, fraudsters, middlemen along with some unscrupulous officers-employees have taken advantage of the lack of maintenance of land papers and not arranging records after creation of Jharkhand. I also do not deny that this illicit business must have been going on since the formation of the state. But it is also true that after Hemant Soren took over the power in 2019, this land scam was given a license to protect and share power,” he maintained.
The land transfers in Jharkhand are enforced by the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act which envisaged stringent laws to protect land belonging to tribals and scheduled castes in Jharkhand. But the fraud officers in connivance with the land brokers transferred thousands of acres of land over the years exploiting the loopholes in the two laws.
No wonder, a senior ED officer too had told this writer a few days back that over 1500 acres of government, army and private land which have been prima facie fraudulently transferred recently are under its scanner. “But we have our legal limitations. Also, we don’t have that much manpower to investigate all the cases,” he added.
“That is the reason we have shared information regarding some cases with the State government and recommended it to lodge FIRs against the erring officials under the prevention of corruption act. It was done under the Supreme Court guidelines,” he added.
Notably, a land scam worth Rs 400 crore involving illegal transfer of 200 acres of government land in connivance with land, revenue officials and two IAS officers had hit Ranchi even before Jharkhand was created.
The Bihar government had ordered a vigilance inquiry into the scam in 1998 following a claim of the former Bihar land and revenue minister, Inder Singh Namdhari that officers and bureaucrats had colluded in settling 200 acres of government land in Ranchi and its suburbs.
Following the claim, a seven-member all party assembly committee was constituted in Bihar which looked into 21 cases of illegal transfer of government land and indicted several circle officers, additional collectors and two IAS officers for their complicity in the scam.
Since the cases were related to Jharkhand, all of them were transferred to the state vigilance following bifurcation.
Thereafter, another Rs 1000 crore land scam hit the temple town of Deoghar where land mafias sold about 771.59 acres of non-saleable land in connivance with revenue staff and officials.
The scam had been exposed during the regime of the Mastram Meena in 2011 when he was the Deputy Commissioner of Deoghar. Recommending vigilance inquiry into the matter, he had submitted a report of 29 such cases where documents were changed, fabricated and even destroyed to change the nature of non-saleable and non- transferable land. The scam mainly flourished during the FY 2009 and 2012.
The then Arjun Munda government ordered a CBI inquiry. One Dhruwa Parihasta was touted as the kingpin of the scam. Dhanbad unit of the CBI investigated and submitted a chargesheet before special court. Recently, the Enforcement Directorate also lodged an ECIR (equivalent to FIR) in the Deoghar land scam.
Notably, the then Chief Minister Raghubar Das had declared in 2016 to scrap the that Scheduled Area Regulation (SAR) courts, set up under 1969 under Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, saying this body was misused to transfer the tribal land to non-tribals. However, it was later on decided to vest power of the SAR court in a deputy collector after the Opposition protested the move.
