Punjab Vigilance shares 'secret' list of 48 tainted revenue officials with govt

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, June 20

A ‘secret’ list of 48 tainted tehsildars sent to the government by the Vigilance Bureau has ruffled many feathers in the state.

According to sources, on May 19, Chief Director, Punjab Vigilance Bureau, had prepared a list, marked ‘secret’, of 48 tehsildars and naib-tehsildars along with a list of agents through whom they were receiving bribe and was sent to Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua.

Five tehsildars from ludhiana

• The list has the names of one tehsildar and two naib tehsildars from Patiala district, one tehsildar each from Barnala, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Sangrur, Moga, Ferozepur and Fazilka each
• Apart from that one tehsildar and three naib tehsildars are in Mohali, one tehsildar and three naib tehsildar in Ropar, one naib tehsildar in Fatehgarh Sahib. One teshildar from Muktsar and five tehsildars and one naib tehsildar are from Ludhiana
• Two tehsildars and two naib tehsildars belong to Jalandhar, three tehsildars and two naib tehsildars to Hoshiarpur, three tehsildars to Kapurthala, one tehsildar and one naib tehsildar to SBS Nagar district, two tehsildars to Gurdaspur, three tehsildars and two naib tehsildars to Bathinda

As per the cover note sent to the Chief Secretary, the list was prepared after gathering information from the field staff. As per note, these officials have deployed individuals and deed writers to receive the bribe money.

Revealing the modus operandi of the corrupt officials, while preparing sale deeds, the writers write code words whether the bribe money has been received from the applicant and the ‘collected money’ is handed over to tehsildar the same day.

The note also mentions that these officials register properties to evade stamp duty, which is leading to loss to the government. The note says that it is common that the registries of the unapproved colonies are done without obtaining the No-Ojcetion Certificates (NOC). Even the genuine properties for which the NOC is not required, people are being armtwisted to pay the bribe.

Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua confirmed that he had received the list from the Vigilance and forwarded it to the Financial Commissioner, revenue, three weeks back. “But we have not received any action taken report so far,” he said.

Gurdev Singh Dham, president of the Revenue Officers’ Association, said it meant out of 275 revenue officers, around 80 per cent were honest. They have called a meeting of their association and will decide their future course of action.