The CBI on Tuesday conducted searches at 11 places in Jammu, Udhampur and Kathua districts of Jammu and Kashmir in connection with allegations of large-scale illegal construction and land encroachment in Patnitop.
The searches were carried out in the office and residential premises of several public servants, including the then Chief Executive Officers of the Patnitop Development Authority (PDA), Transport Department, Sales Tax Department and other agencies.
The accused were involved in allowing land encroachments at tourist locations in the Patnitop area of Udhampur. Among the 74 persons named in the case are eight public servants and the owners of 59 hotels, resorts and guest houses.
“A preliminary enquiry was earlier conducted on the directions of the J&K High Court in the matter,” said a CBI official. The role of all the PDA Chief Executive Officers and other functionaries, who were posted in the past 25 years, has come under the scanner.
The court order in December 2019 for the probe pertained to alleged violations of the master plan in the Patnitop and Sanasar areas, which come under the PDA. The allegations included failure on the part of the authorities to prevent illegal constructions and the change in land use. The violators had got electricity and water connections.
Felling of trees
It was alleged that in several cases, people who were granted licences to run guest houses had been operating hotels. Owing to the illegal construction, a large number of trees were illegally felled.
About 70% of the hotels and restaurants in Patnitop was constructed without permission and had been illegally raised in the green buffer zones, on forest, agricultural and State-owned land.
Hotel Greentop, Hotel Subhash Palace, Hotel Holiday Inn, Hotel Hill View Guest House, Hotel Aroma Top, Hotel Patnitop, Karan Resort, Neelkanth Resort and Hotel Trinetra were constructed in areas beyond the land demarcated by the PDA. Mariyam Begum Hotel misused the green buffer land through constructions for commercial purpose, as alleged.
More than 60% of the hotels, guest houses and lodges in Patnitop were functioning without any registration from the J&K Tourism Department.
Registration of 21 hotels, guest houses and resorts had expired, while 17 were given licences for guest houses, but were running hotels.
In July 2016, then J&K government stated that about 16.41 lakh kanals of public land had been illegally encroached. The figure stood at 12.68 lakh kanals in Jammu. Over 8,625.63 hectare of forest land was grabbed in Jammu, while about 3,404 was illegally occupied in Kashmir.
