IAS officer faces Gujarat land scam case, sent to jail

GANDHINAGAR - An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, arrested Wednesday for the post-earthquake Kutch land scam, was remanded in four days’ police custody in Gujarat’s Bhuj town, police said. Three others also were arrested Thursday, police added.

The former Kutch district collector and present Bhavnagar Municipal Commissioner, Pradeep Sharma was presented in court of Chief Judicial Magistrate B.J. Jadhav with a plea for seven days’ police custody. But the court granted a police remand of four days.

The others arrested and presented in court were three office-bearers of the Bhukamgrast Bhuj Bazar Navnirman Charitable Trust - president Arvind Thakkar, secretary Shambhubhai Popat and treasurer Prabodh Kothari. They too were sent to four-day police custody.

Sharma was arrested in Bhavnagar Wednesday for irregularities in land allotment to the 2001 earthquake victims in Kutch district of Gujarat during his tenure as district collector.

The arrest comes after a private complaint was filed in the court of the chief judicial magistrate in 2006, alleging irregularities in allotment of land to those affected by the earthquake in Kutch.

The case involved allotment of 17 acres of land valued at over Rs.70 crore to 479 affected persons. Subsequent investigations revealed that a large number of those allotted the land were not entitled to it.

The district collector was also the authority to issue the certificate of entitlement.