Revenue Department Poonch scripted various land frauds over the years; Many ACRs, Tehsildars, Patwaris, NTs under radar
POONCH TODAY NEWS
POONCH: Over the years, tainted officers of Revenue Department Poonch scripted many frauds relating to illegal mutations of state/forest lands and other lands by indulging in hand in glove activity. From the evidence available, it shows that major aim of every ACR, Tehsildar, Patwaris and N.Ts was to earn money by all means, whether in a legal or illegal way. The first major fraud scripted by Revenue officers of Poonch was under SRO 320 of 1985 in which many government lands and buildings were illegally transferred on record. Many cases of illegal mutations in different areas of Poonch district are still lying beneath the carpet and needs government attention to detect those revenue frauds also. Moreover, the entire agriculture land was silently transferred to commercial near S.K bridge which was declared as “Red Zone.” Even a committee was formed by DDC Poonch in which ACR Poonch, Tehsildar Haveli, X.En Irrigation and BDO Poonch were made members and were directed to give report within a month, but after passing of several months, no development has taken place to identify those who violated Red zone orders and this shows that revenue department officials are encouraging such unethical practices and are hand in glove with encroachers. More and more cases of frauds scripted by various ACRs, Tehsildars and other revenue officials are coming out now. In yet another blunder, a state land reportedly was shown as private land by a former top revenue officer by taking huge money from an individual and then later, the said land was transferred by the said individual to government for laying of high tension power transmission line in Buffliaz, which came from Punjab and after passing through Thanamandi and Bufliaz areas, went to Srinagar. Few days back, ACB produced charge sheet against a former ACR Poonch, Shafiq Choudhary for Illegal mutation of land in Degwar Maldayalan. An inquiry was conducted by ACB that officers in question issued Fard intikhab in respect of Forest/state land to villagers who further sold land to land grabbers. Similarly, in replying to a letter from Divisional Commissioner Jammu on a public grievance, ADDC Poonch vide his no ADDCP/96 dated 05-01-2021 said that 14 nos of mutations were attested illegally on Khasra no 297 by a former ACR Shafiq Choudhary, few then tehsildars including Nisar Shad, Vijay kumar, and Mohd Razak Choudary, a retired Niab Tehsidlar Bashir Ahmed Khakhi and few Patwaris namely Mohd Ayoub, Ghulam Rasool Shah and a patwari who died few years ago. Exposure of such episodes shows that how Revenue officers over the years looted public money by scripting illegal mutations on state/forest lands and with the latest exposure, credibility of Revenue Department Poonch has come down to a zero level where people hesitate to trust the affairs of department. Sources said that all the officials of Revenue department are already under the radar of anti graft agencies. Only few scams of Revenue department Poonch has come in public domain and this is just a tip of an iceberg. If government conducts a detailed enquiry from 1980 onwards, then many revenue scams worth thousands of crores will come out and many in service and retired revenue officials, who once served in Poonch in different capacities as ACRs, Tehsildars, Niab Tehsildars, Girdawars and Patwaris, and scripted such scams, may face the heat. A high level inquiry is needed from government to find the truth about various revenue scams, even from beneath the debris to bring to book those, who took every thing for granted to fulfil their lust for money.
