Housing Board to cancel Panipat land allotments

The Haryana Housing Board will soon initiate the process to cancel illegal land allotments of 187 sq yard and 174 sq yard in Sectors 11 and 12 in Panipat, for which five Board officials and two allottees have been booked for land fraud.

"We will approach civil court for cancellation of allotment of land in Panipat," said RS Kharab, chief administrator, Housing Board. He added that the whole process would take some time.

It was on Kharab's complaint that an FIR for cheating, forgery, destroying official documents and prevention of corruption Act had been registered at Sector 5 police station here against town planner Vibha Walia, assistant engineer HL Chopra, assistant sub divisional engineer Des Raj, estate managers Mahinder Singh and Roshan Lal and allottees Manohar Lal and Sham Lal.

In the FIR, lapses on the part of Karnal executive engineer Jagminder Goyal have also been mentioned. Besides, the Board officials named in the FIR have been found guilty in the internal inquiry. The original letters written by Walia to estate managers for allotment have been missing from the record.

The approval of allotment of 187 sq yard to Manohar Lal and 174 sq yard to Sham Lal, which was in use by Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) and Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, was done by town planner Vibha Walia without processing the case and taking approval from the competent authority - the chief administrator.

Even the availability of land for allotment was not got confirmed from the concerned executive. The allotment of land has been made by estate managers in haste without verifying the site position and all other actions i.e. issuance of no dues certificate and execution of conveyance deed have been taken in haste by deviating from the normal procedure.

Three months late
It has also come to light that the police also registered the FIR three months late. The complaint was made on July 19 and the FIR was registered on October 24 on the basis of the second complaint dated October 9. "We are yet to make any arrests. We are investigating," said ACP Noopur Bishnoi, SHO of Sector 5 police station.