Roshni scam: Bizman's premises searched

PTI

New Delhi, June 19

The CBI on Sunday conducted a search on the premises of prominent businessman Showkat Chaudhary in Srinagar after registering a case against him and others over the Roshni land allocation scam, officials said. On June 15, the CBI had registered a fresh case against Chaudhary and retired IAS officers Mehboob Iqbal (then Kashmir divisional commissioner) and Sheikh Ejaz Iqbal (then Srinagar deputy commissioner), they said.

The CBI has also named in the FIR other retired officers—Mohammad Afzal Bhat from the Kashmir Administrative Service, the then Kashmir Additional Commissioner Mushtaq Ahmad Malik (also Assistant Commissioner of Revenue, Srinagar), Mohammed Akram Khan, the then Tehsildar (Nazool), and Sheikh Muneer Akhtar, the then Tehsildar of Srinagar.

Chaudhary, the owner of Hattrick Food Industries at Choudhary Bagh in Zakura, was part of a delegation of businessmen from J&K that called upon PM Narendra Modi in April this year.

The CBI has alleged that Chaudhary was declared unauthorised occupant of a plot under the Roshni Act and was given the ownership of eight marlas of land for Rs 14.40 lakh in violation of provisions of the Act.

It is alleged that a land measuring four kanals in the Estate Nursing Garh, Tehsil Srinagar was leased out to one Mehboob Beigh and Mumtaaz Afzal Beigh in 1977 and the lease agreement was coming to an end in 2020. But they had handed over eight marlas out of the total four kanals of land to Chaudhary by virtue of irrevocable Power of Attorney in 2001.