E-Paper
CBI inquiry against former J&K minister
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) against former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Chaudhary Lal Singh for alleged corruption and land grabbing by R B Educational Trust he runs in Jammu & Kashmir’s Kathua.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) against former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Chaudhary Lal Singh for alleged corruption and land grabbing by R B Educational Trust he runs in Jammu & Kashmir’s Kathua, officials said on Thursday.
Singh quit as a minister in the then People’s Democratic Party-BJP government in Jammu & Kashmir in April 2018 after he attended rallies in support of the men accused of raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl. He left BJP in February 2019.
The officials cited above said the PE, which is the first step before a case is registered, has been lodged to investigate allegations of “illegal gratification and extraneous consideration by the revenue and forest officials of district Kathua in allowing sale and purchase of forest land”.
False certificates claiming that the land comes under the exempted category were used to purchase it for trust.
HT could not reach Singh for comments as his phone was switched off.
An official cited the PE and said trust is in possession of huge tracts of land in gross violation of ceiling prescribed under the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976. False information was also submitted allegedly in the Jammu & Kashmir high court in 2015 in favour of the trust.
