Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, March 11: The state government has recommended a CBI probe into the tampering of revenue records and other fraudulent transactions that had led to two separate leaseholds over the same patch of two acres of government land in Bhubaneswar.

The government’s move came after the Orissa High 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.

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

But the same land seems to have also been recorded in the name of other people. Subash Chandra Gauda had claimed ownership of 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.

A senior government officer told The Telegraph that the state government had absolutely no problem in handing over the case to the CBI.

“We are handing the case to the central agency and we will fully co-operate with them,” said the officer.

Acting on the petition, the high court had in October 2010 called for the records related to the land including land settlement map from the Bhubaneswar tahasildar.

“The two judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice Sanju Panda directed a CBI probe yesterday after it found prima facie that land records had been tampered with,” said government counsel Jyotiprakash Patnaik.

“While ordering the 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 tahsildar to depute a revenue official who has not been associated with the case to assist the CBI, he added.

The court, on examination of the records, had found that the name of Muralidhar Harichandan had been planted over some other lease record to pass a separate lease order. Official sources said successive governments in the state had distributed lands in Gadakanam, Chandaka, Patrapur and Patia area around Bhubaneswar from 1959 to1980 for agriculture purposes to the landless living within a 5 km-radius from the city.

Interestingly, the CBI probe order has come when a probe by the state crime branch is underway into ownership claimed over hundreds of acres in the capital allegedly on the basis of fraudulent land records.