Field officer held in Rs 350cr land consolidation scam

GREATER NOIDA: More than four years after a probe was launched into the Rs 350 crore land consolidation scam, one more person has been arrested from Kannoj in Uttar Pradesh. This is the sixth arrest by the crime branch in the case in which the final charge-sheet was filed nearly a month ago.
Ramesh Chand, a field officer in the land consolidation department, was held on Sunday and produced before the chief judicial magistrate the same day, who remanded him to 14 days’ judicial custody, crime branch officials said on Monday.
"Since Chand was in charge of making maps in the land consolidation department, he could easily fudge the land compensation records in connivance with others. He was a team member in the final plan of land consolidation in the year 2011-12. He fudged records of more than 70 people. He was apprehended from Kannoj," said Vishwajeet Srivastava, SP Gautam Budh Nagar’s crime branch.
Srivastava said that they would file another charge-sheet this week against another three government officials for allegedly fudging land and land compensation records. "Till now, charge-sheet has been filed against 44 persons in the case. Of these 13 people are state government officials, while others include land mafia and farmers. Five other officials have already been arrested and are currently in jail," he said.
Though a total of 61 people were booked for forgery, cheating and manipulation of land records in the case, the charge-sheet has been filed against only 44 people as 17 people have died during the course of the investigation while one named Jaidev is yet to be traced. "Of these 44, six accused have been arrested, while 37 have obtained a stay against arrest and one is untraced," Srivastava said.
Having been handed over the investigation barely a year ago, the charge-sheet, running into 7,500 pages, was filed by the crime branch in the Gautam Budh Nagar court last month. Those charged for the alleged misappropriation of land and land compensation, pertaining to nearly 180 acres of land falling under the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) area, included officials of the land consolidation department.
According to Srivastava, the government officials named in the final charge-sheet include sub-divisional magistrates, land consolidation officers, registrars, lekhpals, tehsildars and accountants of the land consolidation department and the Gautam Budh Nagar district. "We would soon make more arrests in the case," he added.
The land consolidation scam surfaced in 2011 when several farmers lodged a complaint with the commissioner of the state’s land consolidation department. Following the complaint, a three-member panel was formed by the state government and it found several instances of fraud by government officials in connivance with private parties to the tune of over Rs 350 crore.
Though the probe panel had scrutinized land in two villages of Greater Noida — Afzalpur and Jaganpur — at the time, the Allahabad high court in July 2014 further directed the principle secretary (revenue) to form a high-powered committee to further investigate the matter in other villages too. The committee launched an investigation into two more villages of Greater Noida — Atta Fathehpur and Dankaur.