BHOPAL: Taking on his party’s government on the controversial merger issue, former CM Babulal Gaur said in Vidhan Sabha on Monday that the government officers had declared private land as government’s. The property of persons who had migrated to Pakistan was ‘custodian property’ but its mutation was done by government officials. He said the government was misleading the House and demanded action against such officials.
During the Question Hour, MLA Harsh Yadav raised the issue of merger of Bhopal state with the Indian Union and the property disputes it had generated. Gaur intervened in the discussion. Outside the House, Gaur said the officers were running amok.
Yadav said hundreds of crores of rupees had changed hands in the mutation of land. Despite the stay by the collector, 149 cases of mutation and division of property were processed in 13 villages. He demanded all these actions be declared null and void and the guilty officers be punished.
He said, in reply to a question in July 2016, the minister had declared in the House that action would be taken for declaring all these mutations null and void but no action was taken even in a single case.
In his reply, minister for parliamentary affairs Narottam Mishra said prima facie it seemed irregularities were committed. The collector’s report was received last week and notices were being issued to all officers and employees who had done the mutations.
Gaur said he had complete information on the issue and couldn table it in the House. Mishra responded by saying that a probe would be conducted and the guilty punished. He said the merger agreement was not implemented in 1950 and that was why problems were cropping up. He said an NGO had moved court and this was also creating problems and delaying things.
