The dark secrets
The Roshini land scam is proving to be the mother of all scams. Given the open and brazen loot of state resources, the organized land grab had been legalized and the political class in Jammu and Kashmir has proven to be the major gainers.
Now that the case has already been transferred to CBI and the High Court is monitoring the case, it seems that those involved will be brought to justice.
The administration as directed by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to make public land given under the controversial Roshni land scheme, since scrapped by a court, came out with the list of beneficiaries. On Tuesday, it came out with a list of those who had allegedly encroached land other than those given under the scheme.
The list also highlighted the headquarters of the National Conference in both Srinagar and Jammu were legalised under the controversial Roshni Act.
The details that had emerged earlier suggested that three former ministers, several politicians and a former bureaucrat figured in the list of beneficiaries who have availed land under now scrapped Roshni Act or encroached state land for residential or commercial purposes.
The lists were made public by the divisional administration, both in Kashmir and Jammu regions, in accordance with the October 9 directive of the high court which has declared Roshni Act “illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable” and ordered a CBI probe into the allotment of the land under this law.
Issuing the first list of 35 beneficiaries who included former finance minister Haseeb Drabu and some top hoteliers and a former bureaucrat, the divisional administration Kashmir showed that National Conference headquarters, several hotels and over a dozen commercial buildings at prime locations in and around Lal Chowk have been regularized under the act.
On November 1, the government cancelled all land transfers that took place under the JK State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 – also known as the Roshni Act – under which 2.5 lakh acres of land was to be transferred to the existing occupants.
The principal secretary and revenue department had been asked to work out a plan to retrieve large tracts of state land vested under the Act. According to the high court order, a total of 6,04,602 kanals (75,575 acres) of state land had been regularised and transferred to the occupants. This included 5,71,210 kanals (71,401 acres) in Jammu and 33,392 kanals (4174 acres) in the Kashmir province.
The Act popularly called as Roshni Scheme was believed to be a revolutionary step in the annals of history in Jammu and Kashmir after the Agrarian Reforms Act. It was hoped that the legislation would help to boost the farming sector and in turn generate substantial revenue for funding power projects across the State. However, the way the scheme was rolled out and executed it seems that it was a well planned and organised loot. The Roshini scheme involved the biggest ever land scam in Jammu and Kashmir, with the State losing about Rs 25000 crore.
KV Network
