Deoghar town on Thursday. Picture by Ajay Kumar Mandal

Ranchi/Dumka, Sept. 8: Pandora’s box is being prised open in the hitherto unperturbed temple town of Deoghar.

The scent of a Rs 1,000-crore land scam, made stronger by enormous deed registration figures in recent years, has prompted chief minister Arjun Munda to seek a CBI probe within 48 hours of putting the state vigilance bureau on the missing acre trail.

Home secretary J.B. Tubid told The Telegraph that Munda decided on a CBI inquiry into the 800-acre Deoghar land scam on Wednesday. “Today being a holiday for Karma festival, the government’s request for the agency’s intervention will be sent to the Centre on Friday,” he said.

He added that the CBI would be able to unravel whether the land mafia from neighbouring states (read Bihar and Bengal) are involved and whether they have had high-profile buyers as suspected.

Tubid maintained that since the CBI would need some time to take up the case and begin investigations, the state vigilance would lodge an FIR and begin a preliminary probe so that documentary evidence — or whatever remains of it after the cash-for-charred-deeds episode — are not destroyed by the mafia.

IG (vigilance) M.V. Rao, however, said he was yet to be communicated about the state government’s decision on filing a case.

Currently, the quantum of the scam is pegged at more than Rs 1,000 crore. But registration of a very large number of sale deeds in over a decade also warns of burgeoning figures because 90 per cent land in Deoghar belong to the non-saleable category under the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act.

Several factors contribute to this growing — and apparently illegitimate — demand for Deoghar acres. The state government’s recent decision to set up a terminal in collaboration with Airports Authority of India (AAI) being one of the primary ones because the town is the gateway to the entire Santhal Pargana region, comprising five other districts — Godda, Dumka, Sahebganj, Jamtara and Pakur.

During World War II, affluent merchants from Bengal developed Deoghar into a health resort complete with palatial houses. Over the years, bureaucrats and businessmen turned the town into a favourite getaway. The famous temple of Lord Baidyanath, Satsanga Ashram for devotees of Shri Shri Thakur Anukulchandra and an annual festival at Rikhia Ashram, established by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, currently draw lakhs from country and abroad.

According to statistics available with the Deoghar district administration, 3,000-4,000 deeds are registered annually since the days of undivided Bihar.

In the last fiscal, the number crossed 4,000. “The exact figure for 2010-11 is 4,009,” said district registrar Ram Kumar Madhesia. Though he could not say whether the figure was maximum for the state, he was definite that Deoghar topped the land sale chart in Santhal Pargana.

In the other districts of the region, including the state’s second capital Dumka, the yearly deed figure ranges between 200 and 300, lending credence to the suspicion that large-scale illegal transfer of non-saleable acres is happening in the temple town for years.

“The common perception is that the spurt in registry of land deeds in Deoghar started after the state was carved out of Bihar in 2000. This is very wrong. The figure stood at 3,400 in 1999,” Madhesia contended.

Opposition leaders cried corruption in chorus.

“Residents may be indulging in foul play to turn non-saleable plots into saleable ones,” claimed JVM principal general secretary Pradeep Yadav.

Dumka CPM district secretary Ramchandra Manjhi seconded him. “The revelation (Deoghar land scam) isn’t surprising. Tribal land is being grabbed for 150 years in connivance with corrupt government officials. It is high time that the functioning of record rooms and settlement offices in Santhal Pargana is brought under scanner to expose illegal transfer of acres,” he said.