High court wants action against accused officials

THE BENCH WAS MIFFED OVER THE GOVT LETTING OFF MANY ACCUSED OFFICIALS WITH MINOR PUNISHMENTS

Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday sought a detailed report from the Punjab government on stamp duty evasion scam amounting to crores of rupees. The high court bench of justice AK Mittal and justice AS Grewal was miffed over the government letting off many of the accused officials with minor punishments.

“What worries us is (that the) government has not taken appropriate action on a scam of this scale,” the high court bench said even as advocate general Atul Nanda argued that the government is not defending the officers, but several years have passed since this whole exercise was taken up and initiating any action at this stage would amount to re-opening of a case.

As many as 85 officers were named in the scam. Four tehsildars and nine naib-tehsildars were found guilty and various punishments were imposed upon them. However, the petitioner had alleged that the government did not take action against all the officers and many of them were let off with warnings only. The court has asked the state to give details about each officer’s case.

The court was hearing a PIL, filed by Amritsar resident Baldev Singh Sirsa in 2013, seeking inquiry by an independent agency to check the alleged largescale evasion of stamp duty and registration fee across Punjab. It was alleged that in Amritsar alone, stamp duty evasion worth ₹3.63 crore was detected.

Widespread evasion of stamp duty and registration fee took place by undervaluing the property or by registering documents under lesser punitive heads illegally or by simply registering sale of properties below the collector rate in collusion with the authorities concerned in the past decade, as per the petitioner.