SRINAGAR, Oct 16: Terming as “serious” the allegations of forest land grabbing by senior cabinet minster, Taj Mohiuddin, the chairman of the legislative council (LC) has now constituted a House Committee to investigate into the matter.
The committee was constituted after the legislator from Panthers Party Mohammad Rafi Shah during the autumn session presented some documents, which he claimed were official, and accused Taj of grabbing forest land in Shopian district.
While the accused minister immediately reacted to the allegations in House and termed the allegations baseless, various legislators urged the chairman of the House to form the House Committee to probe the allegations.
After hearing both sides, the Chairman reserved his decision and formed the House Committee headed by senior Legislator from PDP Murtaza Khan and asked them to investigate the accusations impartially.
The other members of the committee are Syed Mohammad Rafiq Shah, Bashir Ahamd Veeri, Khalid Najeeb Suharwardy and Bashir Ahmad Magray.
“The issue in hand has raised a controversy inside and outside the House and there is a strong prima facie case that warrants a thorough and detailed investigation by a committee of this House,” reads the order of chairman.
The order further reads: “In the contemporary political environment, failure to constitute a committee to investigate the matter and establish the facts will be interpreted as an attempt on my part to cover up and shield those whose probity has been challenged.”
Stating that the documents presented by Shah in the House reflects some patent contradictions and raise some serious questions, the Chairman in his order has said that providing chance to accused Minster is fair as he claimed his innocence.
“It will be fair to provide the chance to Taj Mohiuddin, who claims innocence, and also the concerned officers of Revenue and Forest departments to put forth and prove their versions before a House Committee for a through and impartial investigations,” the chairman in his order said.
Chairman, however, in his observations has termed the documentary poof by Shah as “eyewash,” saying that the name of Chowkidar who has been quoted in an on spot investigation has not been mentioned.
“The statement of Lamberdar or any neighbouring land owners have also not been recorded. It also does not reveal the name of patwari or how long he was posted in the said village,” the chairman has observed in the perusal of documents.
In his observations, the Chairman said that while the documents shows that land under Khasra number 4 is under legal occupation of Taj Mohiuddin and land under Kh. No. 1162 was under his cultivation, there is no mention of his illegal occupation over land under Kh. No. 1162 which contradicts the report of Patwari, Naib tehsildar and Tehsildar.
He said that another document brought to his notice purported to be notice of Shopian D.F.O raising certain questions because both the number and date appear to have changed.
“This letter is supposed to have certain other documents enclosed with it as mentioned in it at the left bottom but actually there is none,” the three page order reads, adding that the claim of DFO that land in question as a forest land appears to have been accepted because there is nothing on the record to show that Tehsildar had disagreed with the claim and statement of concerned officer.
The final observation, the chairman made, was that the document addressed by the tehsildar Shopian to DC Pulwama with no date and number has recorded the land in question as per Fard Partaal with Taj Mohiuddin from the year 1983 (Kharief). However, in another document, the revenue records pertaining to land in question prior to 1987 were gutted in fire.
“If that is true as claimed, then how is the record pertaining to the said land of the year 1983 Kharief available,” he questions. |
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