For many a month the NH 74 Compensation Scam of Uttarakhand has been grabbing headlines. In a fresh update, today Trivendra Singh Rawat run State Government suspended two senior IAS officers Pankaj Pandey and Chandresh Kumar Yadav, whose names had crept up during the investigations.
Initial investigation revealed that land-use had been changed many a time to pay compensation at inflated rates. During the preliminary investigation carried out at the Commissioner Level, eight PCS officials had been named as the first accused out of which seven officers were suspended and one had retired.
The investigation was then handed over to the SIT, which submitted a report to the government, highlighting the involvement of two IAS officers in the scam. Both Pankaj Kumar Pandey IAS and Chandresh Yadav IAS were District Magistrates of Udham Singh Nagar during the period under the scanner. They were Arbitrators during their respective tenures.
The arbitrator’s recommendation is important for compensation. After the SIT report, the government wrote to the DOPT seeking permission to investigate the above-mentioned officers, and to demand an explanation from them. Today the Trivendra Singh Rawat Government suspended them on finding that their explanations unsatisfactory.
Heavy irregularities arose in land acquisition for the widening of National Highway 74, at that time of Harish Rawat headed Congress government.
The BJP had raised this issue amid much heat and dust in the last Assembly Elections. They had promised to get to the bottom of this murky affair if they came back to power. True to their word, after the BJP government formation, the scam was investigate at a break neck pace, first at the Commissioner level and then by setting up a SIT.
Meanwhile the government had sought and obtained approval from the Central Personnel and Training Department (DOPT) to be able to take action against these two IAS officers without any further delay.
