CBI visits Ggn DTCP office to collect documents on land scam

Gurugram: Officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday visited the Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) office here and took important documents pertaining to the alleged land scam in Sector 58 to 65.

The agency is carrying out investigations on the directions of the Supreme Court.

The top court had raised questions that initially 1,400 acre of land was notified for acquisition, but only 87 acre was used for infrastructure development projects.

Rest of the land was allotted to various entities including colonisers and builders, it was alleged.

Terming it a colourable exercise of power, the apex court said that provisions of the Land Acquisition Act were misused.

The order came after Haryana Additional Advocate General Anil Grover told the court bench that the present state government, led by Manohar Lal Khattar, did not have any objection to the matter being probed by the CBI.

The Haryana government's stand was communicated to the court after Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan discussed the matter with the Chief Minister "in detail".

Accordingly, the top court was informed that the state government had no objection to handing over the matter to the CBI for probe.

However, the government has made it clear to the court that the observations made by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in its January 10, 2014 order regarding External Development Charges (EDC), should not be treated as binding as it might have a bearing on other cases.

The high court bench had on Tuesday specifically sought to know the Haryana government's stand on the issue after advocate Jasbir Singh Malik, representing the landowners, said poor farmers had to suffer because of this kind of misuse of power.

"Courts cannot be oblivious to the fact that the 1,400-acre land was meant to be acquired for development by HUDA and finally it was reduced to 87 acres," Malik had said.