CBI files case against trust of Lal Singh’s kin
CBI raids nine locations in Jammu and Kathua, including the residential premises of the former BJP minister
JAMMU : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday registered a case of criminal breach of trust and corruption against a Kathua-based educational trust run by former Jammu and Kashmir minister Choudhary Lal Singh’s family and some other government officials to probe encroachment on a huge tract of government land and corruption charges.
The CBI also raided nine locations in Jammu and Kathua, including the residential premises of Lal Singh, in Rajbagh and Kathua.
“The CBI has registered a case against RB Educational Trust (through its chairperson) and others including the then DC Kathua, the then tehsildar, naib tehsildar, girdawar, patwari and unknown persons for allegedly allowing the trust to possess land beyond the ceiling limit and submitting false affidavits in support of the trust, causing loss to the state exchequer,” said a CBI official.
“Two CBI teams launched searches on the premises of Choudhary Lal Singh in ward number 2 of Kathua town and in Rajbagh around 7am,” said an official.
Singh had resigned from the BJP in 2018, following a row over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl at Rasana in Jammu’s Kathua district in 2018. On June 25, CBI had registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) against RB Educational Trust to probe into the allegations of illegal gratification and extraneous consideration by the revenue and forest officials of Kathua district in allowing the sale and purchase of forest land.
The PE alleged that false land certificates, which come under the exempted category of Jammu &Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, were used by the educational trust in its alleged land-grabbing activities.
The PE claimed that the trust, a beneficiary of such alleged illegal acts, has in its possession huge tracts of land in gross violation of the ceiling prescribed under the Act. It also alleged that erroneous information was submitted in the Jammu & Kashmir high court (HC) on June 9, 2015 as public interest litigation (PIL) in a bid to favour the trust, the official said.