CBI court rejects plea, upholds three-year jail to seven convicts

MOHALI : Dismissing an appeal filed by seven convicts, including a former animal husbandry deputy director, a patwari, a junior engineer (JE), and two head constables, the CBI special court in Mohali upheld the three-year jail term awarded to them after they were held guilty of selling village surplus land in Hoshiarpur using forged documents.

The CBI court, Patiala, in January 2016 had convicted former animal husbandry department deputy director Mohan Singh Nijjer, JE Balram Singh Rana of Kandi Kanal village, head constables Parveen Kumar and Rajinder Singh and patwari Ram Parkash of Kalvan Bhangu besides Sewa Ram and Ratan Singh.

The convicts filed a petition against the order urging the court to take a lenient view since they have “faced agony of trial for the last 22 years”. “the appellants (convicts) tried to usurp 435 acres of land and thus no ground is made out to reduce the sentence awarded to them by the trial court (sic),” observed special CBI judge NS Gill. The convicts, who were out on bail, were taken into custody and sent to jail.

The CBI on April 24, 2002, registered a case against them for forging documents of the land which was allotted by the government to members of the economically weaker section (EWS) at Takhani village in Hoshiarpur, but the then district revenue officer allegedly sold the land to his aides at ₹825 per acre after forging the documents. It was on June 27, 1991, that village residents lodged a complaint to the then deputy commissioner seeking a probe into the matter.

Patwari Ram Parkash claimed to have been pressured to prepare the fake documents. It was on his petition in the Punjab and Haryana high court that the case was handed over to the CBI.