Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 26 Jun: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has raided the house of PCS officer DP Singh on Rajpur Road, here. This action is linked to the NH-74 land compensation scam worth Rs 400 crore. The scam came to light in 2017 and involved many government officers and farmers.
According to reports, the ED team raided a total of nine locations. These included places in Dehradun and in Uttar Pradesh. In this scam, wrong compensation was given for land acquisition between 2011 and 2016. Land that was not agricultural was wrongly shown as farmland to claim more money.
The scam affected areas from Sitarganj to Haridwar. During the investigation, many officers and farmers were found guilty. DP Singh was the SDM at that time.
The former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had handed over the investigation of this scam to the CBI. The CBI team conducted a thorough investigation and submitted its chargesheet. Based on this, in July 2022, DP Singh was arrested and sent to jail.
He was arrested in 2019 but got bail. In 2022, he was arrested again and sent to jail. He has been in jail for the past 14 months.
After the chargesheet in this scam, the ED also registered its own case. On Thursday, ED teams raided various locations across the state, including DP Singh’s residence, as part of their investigation into money laundering. Several documents have been seized.
In this case NH-74 land scam, not only officers but also many farmers were arrested. These farmers had reportedly taken compensation by showing their land as agricultural, whereas it was actually non-agricultural. This was done in collusion with government officers, and several such farmers were sent to jail after being found guilty.
The investigation is still ongoing. The ED may soon take more action against other people involved in the scam.
