Guava orchard compensation scam: HC dismisses bail plea of officer who recommended release of ₹123 crore to landowners

The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of a revenue official who recommended the release of ₹123 crore to landowners in the infamous guava compensation scam reported in Mohali.

“Although the petitioner’s silence or lack of dissenting note might not be an offence, the petitioner was duty-bound to point out the ground reality of a guava orchard and the age of the plants by referring to the girdawari, which he failed to do in his report,” the bench of justice Anoop Chitkara observed while dismissing the plea.

The plea was from Jaskaran Singh, naib tehsildar, Greater Mohali Development Authority (GMADA), an accused in the scam, seeking protection from arrest.

It was on March 27, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided over 20 locations across Punjab, including the houses of state excise and taxation commissioner Varun Roojam, a 2004-batch IAS officer and Ferozepur deputy commissioner Rajesh Dhiman, a 2014-batch IAS officer, in connection with a money-laundering in the compensation scam.

ED took cognisance of May 2023 Punjab Vigilance Bureau FIR pertaining to the embezzlement of ₹137 crore released as compensation for guava orchards on land acquired by the GMADA. The VB had registered the case in Mohali on May 2, 2023.

The names of Dr Sumanpreet Kaur and Jasmine Kaur Dhiman, the wives of Varun Roojam and Rajesh Dhiman, are listed among 18 beneficiaries who got handsome compensation wrongfully in lieu of the land acquired by GMADA at Bakarpur village. It was alleged that Roojam, who was then the Markfed chairman, had invested in the orchard through his family members on the persuasion of Rajesh Dhiman, the then additional chief administrator (ACA) of GMADA.

According to the FIR, Bhupinder Singh, a resident of Bakarpur and a property dealer, in connivance with officials/employees of GMADA, revenue and horticulture departments, started planting guava orchards on the agriculture land by getting land on general power of attorney. The accused prepared fake revenue documents, the VB probe found. It all started when the government started acquiring land in Bakarpur village in Mohali in 2016-17. Senior officers and other private persons close to government officials, especially those in GMADA, started purchasing land in these villages. The accused knew that they could get higher compensation if they showed it to be an orchard. To get enhanced compensation, they started planting 2,000 to 2,500 plants per acre, higher than prescribed norms. The accused, through false revenue records and false reports, projected that the trees were planted in 2016 when these were planted in 2018, as per VB probe.

The court observed that as per probe report it was essential for the petitioner to consider every application form of all the 101 beneficiaries and then to report that he had duly verified those. Had the petitioner relied upon the Khasra Girdawari register/record of the village, the forgery/tampering/addition /deletion in the record would have revealed the modus operandi to show the ante-dated plantation of guava trees, it said adding that in view of this the officer fails to make a case for interim bail.

“The case of the state is that guava trees were never planted but were shown to have been planted, and based on such false assurance, massive compensation was claimed beyond the entitlement. The entire scam could have been stopped if the petitioner had verified the spot and referred to the Girdawari,” the bench observed adding that his malice intent is gathered from the fact that he hurried up the process of releasing compensation of ₹123 crore.