The Uttar Pradesh's revenue department has forwarded chargesheet to the Appointments Department against IAS officer Abhishek Prakash in the Bhatgaon land acquisition scam in the capital Lucknow.
The appointments department will now send the chargesheet to suspended Abhishek Prakash, who is 2006 batch IAS officer.
This will be double whammy for Abhishek Prakash, who is already observing suspension over allegations of irregularities and corruption in approval of a project by an investor while serving as CEO Invest UP.
In March this year, the CM Yogi Aditya Nath received a complaint against Abhishek Prakash that he was demanding 5% bribe through a middleman Nikant Jain.
Now the ghost of Bhatgaon land acquisition scam happened almost five years back is haunting Prakash.
What is Bhatgaon land acquisition scam?
In August 2021, the Uttar Pradesh government had allotted approximately 200 acres of land in Bhatgaon village in Lucknow to establish a state-of-the-art facility for producing next-generation BrahMos missiles.
However, the government had later found discrepancies in compensation to land owners, prompting the government to constitute a committee led by chairman of the Revenue Council, Rajnish Dubey.
The committee submitted its report in July last year, alleging irregularities in the acquisition of the land and payment of compensation, virtually indicting Prakash, who was the chairman of the acquisition committee as the Lucknow district magistrate.
The report said that when this scam happened, the chairman of the procurement committee was Lucknow DM Abhishek Prakash. Compensation was given on the basis of bogus lease.
Under section 76(3) of the Revenue Code, without the completion of five years, farmers were registered as non-transitional to non-transferrable land.
Permission was given to sell the land of some Scheduled Caste tenants to non-Scheduled Caste persons by concealing the facts in a manner contrary to the rules.
Under the conspiracy, the land of the village society was compensated.
The then District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash as the chairman of the purchasing committee did not discharge his duties properly.
Vivek Shukla is a management graduate who has worked in corporate worked for 20 years and is now pursuing his passion — news.
