Dig deep into ‘Roshni land scam’, retrieve land from politicians, babus, businessmen: JKAP’S Dilawar tells CBI

Srinagar: Apni Party senior leader and former minister Mohammad Dilawar Mir on Wednesday demanded that the probe in Roshni scheme be taken to its logical conclusion and no illegal beneficiaries irrespective of their power and positions should be left out without scrutiny under any circumstances.
Mir, however, observed that the genuine beneficiaries of this scheme who have benefitted by exchanging their proprietary land or by paying the government notified rates to the State exchequer for their small land holdings should not face any kind of inconvenience or harassment under the garb of investigations.
The Apni Party senior leader demanded that cutting across the party lines, be it former ministers, MPs, bureaucrats, top civil and police officers, their relatives or any other businessmen; the CBI should dig deep into this loot and complete the probe in a time bound manner.
“The high-value vast tracts of prime lands in Jammu and Srinagar cities or at any other area that have been grabbed by misusing the law should be retrieved without any further delay,” Mir demanded.
He said that those top government functionaries who were at the helm of affairs from time to time since the Roshni scheme was implemented in J&K and have played a pivotal role in facilitating the violators in this will-full loot of valuable land should be identified and taken to task.
“The CAG deserves appreciation for the diligence of its officers who unearthed this bungling in land allotment while auditing the Roshni scheme highlighting the gross irregularities committed by the top bureaucrats in order to facilitate the land deals involving VVIP’s in Jammu and Kashmir,” Mir remarked.
He said CBI should focus on the executive who had the audacity to make the rules and changes thereto without the same being ratified by the Legislature, leading to a huge revenue loss to the State exchequer.
“The question remains under what legal authority the officers had changed the land use and the category, gifted away the agriculture lands to the encroachers for free, and granted huge rebates to the commercial category. How was stamp duty waived off and under what legal authority?” he asked.
He demanded that the whole imbroglio revolving round the Roshni scheme needs to be unbundled and only those beneficiaries who have completed the legal formalities without any intention to cause any loss to the exchequer or encroach or grab any category of land should not be unnecessarily dragged into this controversy.