Fact-finding Report on “illegal accumulation of huge landed
property” by Satish Gajbhiye, IPS Officer in Gop Block of Puri district, Odisha
In the midst  of organising rally  and demonstration on 10.8.15 at lower PMG,
Bhubaneswar   demanding arrest  of Satish Gajbhiye, SP, Kendrapara for  his order of resorting lathi charge,
mercilessly  beating up the common
people, journalist  and ruthless colonial
behaviour to the lawyers in Kendrapara district 
who were  demonstrating against  controversial Godman Baba Sarathi, we
received information from unidentified 
sources  that    Sri
Satish Gajbhiye, IPS officer in name of his wife Ranjana Gajbhiye had purchased
huge landed property  in Gop block of
Puri district. Immediately, it was thought of to send   a Fact-finding
team of Civil Society Groups to   the spot
to ascertain fact about it. It 
deserves  to be mentioned here
that few months back ,  Sri Satish
Gajbhiye was interrogated  by CBI  for 
his alleged  link with  fraud Chit Fund Operators  in the State. The Fact-finding Team visited
twice to Gop Block on 11.8.15 and 13.8.15 to collect information about
his landed property and huge investment of crores of rupees for fishery in that
area. The Team members were 
1.     
Sri Pradip Pradhan, State Convener, Odisha Soochana Adhikar
Abhijan
2.     
Sri Sudhir  Mohanty,
Advocate, Odisha High Court
3.     
Sri Pratap Sahu, Basti Surakhya Sangharash Samiti
4.     
Sri Ashok Mallik, State President, NACDOR, New Delhi
5.     
Sri Ashok Das, Samajik Nyaya Andolan
6.     
Sri Sanjay Sahu, Social Activist
7.     
Sri Satya Sundar Sahu
  Visit on 11.8.15
The Team  reached 
at 12.30  in Gop block  and rushed to 
the spot  Bada Kiapala Mouza  where 
Sri Gajbhiye  had  purchased the land. This place is around 65
km from Bhubaneswar, 25 km from Nimapara block under Puri district. Prior to
visit to the spot, the Team had collected  the copy of sale deed   from the people and found that  huge land 
had been purchased from the families of Dalit Caste and General Caste of
Borimunda, Koruala and Alana village of  Baulanga Gram Panchayat.   The
team members walked on approached road  
to reach at the spot which is around one km from Alana village. The Team
noticed huge excavation work going on for digging pond covering around 90 acres
of land.  It took two hours to visit the
entire land under the fishery project. Five no. of 10 HP big Motors have been
installed fitting with big Generator to draw water from river Kadua  and pump it to the pond.   After physical inspection, the team   interacted with the villagers and the people who
have sold the land to Satish Gajbhiye. It was found that more than 35 acres of
agriculture land had been purchased by him in name of his wife Ranjana
Gajbhiye. They also said that they had not seen Ranjan Gajbhiye while selling
and signing sale deed at the office of Sub-Registrar, Gop. Two Dalals (
brokers) who are linked with Chit Fund Operators Sri Kailash Pradhan of Chadheigan village
of Nagpur Panchayat and Sri Dillip Nayak of Chhanijang   had executed all the works including giving
money against the cost of the land on behalf of Ranjan Gajbhiye. The people who
have sold the land are as follows.
| 
Sl.No | 
Name
  of Gram Panchayat | 
Name
  of village | 
Name
  of the  seller  of Land 
   | 
Caste | 
Quantity
  of land sold in Ac ( Approx.)  | 
| 
1 | 
Baulang | 
Koruala | 
Baistnab Behera | 
Scheduled Caste | 
1 AC | 
| 
2 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Gobardhan  Kandi | 
DO | 
1 Ac | 
| 
3 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Lokanath Behera | 
DO | 
1 Ac | 
| 
4 | 
Do | 
DO | 
Duba Jena | 
DO | 
1 Ac  | 
| 
5 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Braja Sahu | 
General Caste | 
1 Ac | 
| 
6 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Bhramar Biswal | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
7 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Jata Kuanr | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
8 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Bansidhar Lenka | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
9 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Nabaghana Lenka | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
10 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Madhu Kuanr | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
11 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Jahan Biswal | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
12 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Madhab Pradhan | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
13 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Dukhishyam Parida | 
Do | 
1 AC | 
| 
14 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Linga Kuanr | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
15 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Rabi Sahu | 
Do | 
1 Ac | 
| 
16 | 
Do | 
Alana | 
Naran Dalei | 
DO | 
0.47 Ac | 
| 
17 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Gandharba Pradhan | 
Do | 
1.20 Ac | 
| 
19 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Charan Dalei | 
Do | 
0.39 Ac | 
| 
20 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Brajabandhu Dalei | 
Do | 
0.39 Ac | 
| 
21 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Katha dalei | 
Do | 
0.39 Ac | 
| 
22 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Ghana Muduli | 
Do | 
0.16 Ac | 
| 
23 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Banamali Patra | 
Do | 
1.11 Ac | 
| 
24 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Baidhar Dalei | 
Do | 
3 Ac | 
| 
25 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Padma Ch. Murundi 
Brahmanand Murudi 
Bishu h. Murundi | 
Do | 
2.5 Ac | 
| 
26 | 
Do | 
Borimunda | 
Hari Mallik | 
Scheduled caste  | 
  information could not be obtained  due to his absence | 
| 
27 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Kari Mallik | 
Do | 
Do | 
| 
28 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Nari  Mallik | 
Do | 
Do | 
| 
29 | 
Do | 
Do | 
Bhramarbar Mallik | 
Do | 
Do | 
 Besides that it was also found that  he had also illegally  acquired 
and encroached  more than 40
acres  of 
Gochar  and  Anabadi land and river bed  of Kadua river and engaged  dalals 
for  construction of number of big
ponds for fishery  which is going on
since 2013.  The rough estimate for
investment into magnitude  of  work 
undertaken  for  digging pond 
in around 100 acres  of  land 
will be more  than  30 to 40 crores.  Astonishingly, Sri
Gajbhiye  has  not 
disclosed  the information  about 
this property  in  his Property Statement  submitted 
to Govt. of India .
Visit on 13.8.15
 The Team visited office of Tahasildar of Gop
and tried to obtain the map of Badakiapala Mouza in which Sri Satish GajBhiye  has purchased the land. Despite hard effort,
the Team members could not obtain the Map and left the place for meeting with
the villagers of Alana village and the location of the land.  Sri kamalakant  Kuanr 
of Koruala village and Siba Dalei 
of  Alana village  enlightened  
the team about  history  of the 
land  situation  in that area.   That area is basically water logged area.  In 2002-03, the State Govt. set up a Lift
Irrigation Unit under KFW project with proper electricity connection. There was
huge pipe line connected to different areas for supply of water to agricultural
field.  It was estimated that this L.I
project would irrigate 1000 Acres of land of five villages. But actually it was
irrigating 500 acres of land. This L.I. Point became defunct since 2008-09 due
to various reasons like theft of electricity weir, pump etc. Though the
villagers lodged complaint, the administration did not take any steps to repair
it.  The Team also came to know that
there was conspiracy by the powerful people to make it defunct. In the absence
of irrigation facility, the agricultural land remained fallow and unusable.
This provided golden opportunity to the land grabbers or land mafia like Satish
Gajbhiye to motivate the people to sell the land at better and reasonable
price. The Land mafias took a lot of efforts to motivate the people and got
succeeded. The poor people who could not get any benefit from fallow land sold
their land to Land Mafias. They were also assured to get other benefits when
the project will be set up and functional on their land. 
From 2012 onwards, Sri Satish Gajbhiye started his operation
of digging huge pond for fishing cultivation with an estimated cost of more
than 30 to 40 crores rupees.  When the
project got started,    the installed
pipelines were destroyed and taken away from that area.  The huge construction of  pond 
has blocked  the natural flow of
water  causing further water logging  in the area which has resulted  in loss of paddy  in 500 acres of  land 
in the last year. Now the few common questions come to mind of the Team
which needs to be enquired.  
a.   
  How Sri
Gajbhiye    got such huge money for
investment for fishery and its source?
b.  
How he got contact with land brokers of this area to purchase land?
c.   
Has he partnered with different people for this project? If yes, who
are they and how he got introduced with them. 
d.  
Has he got money from fraud Chit Fund Operators? If yes, who are
they?
e.   
Has he   got any money from
Baba sarathi of Kendrapara ?
f.    
Why did Sri Gajbhiye purchase land in the name of his wife?
It is needless to
mention here that few months back, CBI had interrogated Sri Satish Gajbhiye,
IPS officer   in connection with his link
with   fraud Chit Fund Operators. But the
CBI had not taken any steps to arrest him. It may be that CBI might have not got
proper evidence in this matter.  
Our Recommendation and Follow up Action
1.   As the
CBI  had interrogated  Sri Gajbhiye 
for his link with Chit Fund Companies, it  should be handed over to CBI  for 
further  investigation into  huge investment made  for fishery 
in Gop Block.
2.   The
State Govt. should enquire into details of land purchased and illegally grabbed
by Sri Gajbhiye and put it in public domain. 
3.   The
State Govt. should disclose the name of the people involved in this land scam. 
4.   The State
Govt. should make thorough investigation about similar kind of land
grabbing  in these areas like Gop,
Astarang, Brahmagiri  etc. 
After  fact-finding visit, the Team  has submitted petition  to  SP,
CBI   to reopen the file  of Sri Satish 
Gajbhiye, as he has accumulated huge money  and invested 
for  fishery  through Chit Fund Operators.
Report prepared by 
Pradip Pradhan                                                       
RTI Activist                                                  
State Convener
Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan
Plot No-D-27, Maître Vihar
Post-Rail Vihar, Bhubaneswar-23
M-9937843482
 
No comments:
Post a Comment