Cuttack, Jan. 11: Orissa High Court has ordered a CBI probe into the tampering of revenue records and other fraudulent transactions that had led to two separate leaseholds over a patch of two acres of government land in the capital.

The court ordered the probe by the central investigating agency adjudicating on a writ petition filed by Bichitrananda Harichandan seeking judicial intervention against rival claim over his land.

Bichitrananda had claimed that his father, the late Muralidhar Harichandan, was allotted two acres at Andharua village in Chandaka area by the state government during distribution of land to the landless in 1959-60.

But the same land also seems to have been recorded in the name of other persons. Subash Chandra Gauda had claimed ownership over the land on the basis of purported leasehold granted in 1978 along with Sarat Chandra Gauda, Basanta Chandra Gauda, Basanti Gauda, Markanda Beheram, Madhumita Dash and Biswakesh Dash, the petition said.

Acting on it, the court in October 2010 had called for the records related to the land including land settlement map from the Bhubaneswar tehsildar. “The two-judge bench of justice B.P. Das and justice Sanju Panda directed for a CBI probe yesterday after it found prima facie that land records had been tampered with,” government’s counsel Jyotiprakash Patnaik said.

“While ordering probe into the fraudulent land transaction, the court asked the CBI to submit a report within three months,” Patnaik said. The court further directed the Bhubaneswar tehsildar to depute a revenue official, who has not been associated with the case, to assist the CBI.

The court had found that the name of Muralidhar Harichandan had been planted over some other lease records to pass a separate lease order.