Cuttack, Dec. 14: The CID would soon submit in court documents related to the multi-crore Charbatia Aviation Research Centre (ARC) land scam to pave the way for trial of more than 50 persons, including retired bureaucrats, lawyers, businessmen and government officers.
The decks were cleared for the transfer of documents at a recent meeting of the task force constituted to expedite trial of the cases. The ARC in Charbatia, Cuttack, is an operating base of RAW.
The CID sleuths had seized the documents while investigating criminal cases registered in connection with the land scam in 1990. The chargesheets had been filed subsequently but the documents were not submitted in court.
A CID official said the documents were retained in accordance with an order issued by the Cuttack subdivisional judicial magistrate’s court.
The irregularities first surfaced in 1990 when CID officials detected large-scale manipulation of land records during acquisition of 405 acres for the ARC between 1964 and 1976.
An “influential” group of persons had claimed ownership over government land on the basis of forged pattas in collusion with revenue officials. They received compensation in crores from the government during land acquisition in 1977.
Additional government pleader S.C. Padhy said submission of the documents in court would facilitate disposal of several title suits filed by the Cuttack collector.
“The title suits are pending for final disposal but hearing could not commence due to want of the documents,” Padhy said in a letter to the inspector-general of police, CID, on Tuesday requesting for submission of the documents in the Cuttack SDJM’s court.
The CID registered the criminal cases in 1990 and the accused had since created legal hurdles through stay orders from the high court. After the government moved the Supreme Court, a two-judge bench — on November 7, 2003 — quashed the stay orders.
A task force with the Cuttack collector, D.K. Singh, as its chairperson was constituted subsequently to evaluate the progress in disposal of the criminal cases.
In a recent meeting, the task force found that the public prosecutors had been able to make little progress.
