MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Ehtesab Bureau has launched investigations into the alleged unlawful occupation of 126 kanals of official land by a ghee factory in Mirpur, according to a handout issued by the accountability body.

The inquiry has been initiated in light of directions by the AJK Supreme Court, which had recently declared the claim of ‘Qureshi ghee mills’ regarding the land as “absolutely false and a piece of lie,” said the statement issued on Thursday.

The scandal came to fore in 2015, when the owners of the ghee mill challenged an official notification in the AJK high court whereby 325 kanals of land were allotted to the wildlife and fisheries department.

The petitioners had claimed that the government had sold 325 kanals to them in 1980 at the rate of Rs 276 per kanal for the construction of a ghee mill. Of this land, they sold 126 kanals to a flour mill in 1987.

On their petition, the court directed revocation of the notification whereby 325 kanals were transferred to the wildlife and fisheries department.

However, the wildlife department challenged the high court decision in the AJK Supreme Court early this year, maintaining that the respondents’ whole case was based on fraud and deceit.

The counsel for the wildlife and fisheries department informed the AJK SC that the notification issued on Feb 26, 1980, regarding sale of land to the respondents was withdrawn by the government before implementation.

However, the respondents had managed the so-called purchase of 325 kanals in collusion with corrupt revenue department officials under the cover of the withdrawn notification, he maintained.

In actual effect, the counsel told the court, the government had leased out 200 kanals to the respondents with a condition that the land in question can neither be used for any other purpose nor sold out to any other party.

Accepting the appeal on October 28, the court directed that the Ehtesab Bureau investigate the case to expose elements involved in the fraudulent transfer of extra land to the mill. Statements of some of the concerned officials have been recorded and further record has been summoned, the handout said.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2017