Patna, May 11: A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team today carried out a search operation at the residence of Ajay Choudhary, a defence estate officer of the defence ministry, in connection with a Rs 1,500-crore defence land scam in Jammu and Kashmir.

Sources said a Delhi CBI team, with the help of its counterparts in Patna, conducted a raid at Choudhary’s ancestral house in Mohanpur under Shastrinagar police station in Patna and seized a few documents. The team later left for Delhi with the seized items.

Sources said the team spent an hour in the house and also questioned Choudhary’s neighbours. However, it could not be confirmed whether the seized documents were related to the land scam.

Confirming the raid in Patna, CBI spokesperson in Delhi Dharini Mishra said raids were also conducted in Srinagar. “The searches were carried out to collect evidence in the case,” Mishra added. Choudhary was posted in Danapur cantonment in 2000. CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said the raids were conducted to “collect evidences” after the agency recently registered a new case related to defence land in Srinagar that was given “irregularly to private persons”.

A 1997 defence estate officer, Choudhary, has been charged with providing no-objection certificate (NOC) to a private realtor to sell or develop several acres of defence land in Srinagar. Sources said that Choudhary owned flats in Delhi and Srinagar. The CBI registered a case after a preliminary enquiry against Choudhary and others showed that NOCs were given to private real estate developers in gross violation of norms.

The name of another Bihar resident, R.C. Thakur, has surfaced in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society land scam in Maharashtra. Thakur, a resident of Madhubani, was posted in Mumbai as a defence real estate personnel.