Jammu: The CBI on Thursday filed a charge sheet against former BJP leader Lal Singh’s wife and former MLA Kanta Andotra for alleged encroachment and illegal possession of land by an educational trust headed by her in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.
The charge sheet was filed in a special court in Jammu against Andotra, the then chairperson of R B Educational Trust, and Ravinder Singh, the then patwari of Muthi Hardo in Kathua, they said.
The agency had taken over the case on September 12, 2020 after a preliminary enquiry into the allegations of encroachment of huge tract of public, government and forest land in Kathua district in Jammu and Kashmir by certain persons in violation of the J and K Agrarian Reforms Act in connivance with revenue and forest officials, CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said.
Searches were conducted three days later at 10 locations, including the premises of the accused.
“During investigation it was found that the then Chairperson of said Educational Trust allegedly entered into conspiracy with the then Patwari…in pursuance to the conspiracy, fards were issued by Patwari, without mentioning the details in respect of ceiling imposed under Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 and mutations were attested, thus facilitating illegal acquisition of land beyond ceiling limit by the Educational Trust, in gross violation of the…Act,” Joshi said.
The trust runs a school, B.Ed and nursing colleges on the land, transactions of which are being probed by the central agency for alleged irregularities in its purchase, the officials said.
The preliminary enquiry by the CBI had alleged that the trust, a beneficiary of such alleged illegal acts, continues to be in possession of huge tracts of land in gross violation of the ceiling prescribed under the JK Agrarian Reforms Act, they said.
Lal Singh, a former Jammu and Kashmir minister, quit the BJP and floated the Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan (DSS).
He and then industries minister Chander Prakash Ganga had resigned from the PDP-BJP dispensation in 2018 after questions were raised over their participation in a Hindu Ekta Manch rally organised in support of those arrested in connection with the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua that year.
The probe agency had in June, 2020 registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) on the allegations of encroachment of a huge tract of land in Kathua.
“It was further alleged that the accused were involved in the conspiracy with the said educational trust through its chairperson to allow the trust to retain the land beyond the permissible ceiling limit of 100 standard kanal fixed in the Agrarian Reforms Act by deliberately giving the wrong exemption of 32 kanals of grazing land as per said Act and showing the land as ”orchard”, which was not an orchard as per revenue record,” the CBI had said.
“It was further alleged that the accused were involved in the conspiracy with the said educational trust through its chairperson to allow the trust to retain the land beyond the permissible ceiling limit of 100 standard kanal fixed in the Agrarian Reforms Act by deliberately giving the wrong exemption of 32 kanals of grazing land as per said Act and showing the land as ”orchard”, which was not an orchard as per revenue record,” it said.
It was also alleged that the educational trust, in connivance with the other accused, got wrong calculation done of standard kanal of the land measuring 316 kanal and 17 marlas to escape the ceiling imposed by the JK Agrarian Reforms Act, the CBI said. Kanal and marlas are traditional land measurement units.
