By IANS,
Shimla : Himachal Pradesh government Monday ordered a probe into a land deal in Solan district involving a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court following a bribery scandal in Chandigarh.
The land deal involving 18 buyers, including Justice Nirmal Yadav, her daughter Suruchi, and three family members of her brother Ajay Yadav, a Haryana Congress minister, has come under focus after the cash-for-judge scam rocked the judicial circles in Chandigarh last week.
Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge Nirmaljit Kaur alerted authorities after former Haryana additional advocate general Sanjeev Bansal’s assistant delivered a packet containing Rs.1.5 million in cash. Bansal later said the cash was meant for another person and it was part of a land deal. He is in Chandigarh police remand till Tuesday.
Joint Secretary (Revenue) Rameshwar Sharma would conduct an inquiry into the land deal, Himachal Pradesh Revenue Minister Thakur Gulab Singh told IANS.
He said the probe was ordered following reports that allegedly wrong details like fake names and addresses of buyers were furnished in the deed.
“No erring official would be spared,” he said.
The land deal was executed Aug 14.
Meanwhile, sources in the government said a team of the Chandigarh police Monday reached Solan town and collected revenue records of the 11 bighas of land near Kumarhatti town, 60 km from here.
However, Solan superintendent of police S.P.S. Verma and Deputy Commissioner Amandeep Garg have denied any knowledge in this regard.
Verma said Chandigarh’s senior superintendent of police Sudanshu Srivastava talked to him on phone and discussed the issue, but “we have not received any written request from them regarding the custody of land records”.