CBI fails to locate missing land scam papers

 A court here rejected the CBI plea to seek the trial of multicrore-rupee Molarband land grabbing scam with incomplete documents, terming it as “an attempt to bury” the case.

Having failed to trace the missing documents and statement of witnesses in one of the 16 cases registered in the land scam, the agency told special CBI Judge A K Mendiratta that the trial be proceeded on the basis of available documents. The court dismissed the plea saying it is a “half-hearted attempt by the prosecution to bury the proceedings”.

The judge said, “The case clearly reflects malafide exercise whereby the crucial documents and statements of the witnesses have been lost and not placed on record by the prosecution.”

The case pertains to one of the 16 chargesheets filed by the CBI in different illegal allotments of 160 plots at Molarband phase II in June 2004. There are a total of 64 witnesses and 237 documents in the case. But the CBI could only trace statement of one witness and 230 documents.

Besides the former cholle bhature vendor Ashok Malhotra, the other accused are ex-MCD officials S N S Sidhu, Phillip Toppo, Sumer Chand Garg, Bhuvneshwar Singh and Atul Vashisth as well as civilians Ravinder Singh Sandhu, Ram Chander Arora, Lal Mani, Sher Singh, Nanak Chand Khandelwal and businessman Ashok Jain. The court had asked the CBI to trace the missing documents in 2011.  The agency has now informed the court that 230 documents as well as statements of 63 witnesses have been traced.

“Neither any FIR has been registered by the CBI regarding the missing documents, nor any step has been taken to explore the possibility of reconstruction the documents by way of further investigation,” the court said.

The judge said the CBI may obtain requisite orders from the High Court “to ensure proceedings are taken to its logical end”. The court has directed the agency to register an FIR.

Youth gets 12 lakh
A man, who was injured in an accident with a rashly driven car, has been awarded a compensation of over Rs 12 lakh, nearly Rs 5 lakh more than what he had sought, by a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT).

The tribunal awarded Rs 12,67,640 to Rishi Sharma, who was injured in a road accident two years ago. Sharma had sought a compensation of Rs 7 lakh.
“Petitioner succeeded in proving that on May 4, 2010 an accident had taken place due to rash and negligent driving of offending vehicle being driven by driver. I, accordingly, grant a compensation to the tune of Rs 12,67,640 to the petitioner with interest,” MACT presiding officer B S Chumbak said.