Jalandhar: The Punjab and Haryana High court has issued a notice of motion to the state government and asked to submit a probe report on September 7 for issuing grants to Divya Gram non-exist village in government records, on Thursday.
The move came after a civil writ petition filed by Puran Singh of Nurmahal, creation of a ‘fake gram’ panchayat allegedly by the Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan(DJJS) in Nurmahal.
Singh, claiming to be the former driver of DJJS head Ashutosh Maharaj (clinically dead but claimed to be in Samadhi), sought the information through RTI information, a copy of which with), revealed that Jalandhar village Divya Gram reportedly does not exist in revenue records but was getting grants for developmental works.
Following this, he had filed a civil writ petition which was listed before the bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal.
He submitted in the court that a fake gram panchayat, village Diviya Gram, has been created in order to siphon off funds granted by the 14th Finance Commission as also the Local Area Development Fund and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). The rural development and panchayat also receive grants from the board.
Advocate Baltej Singh Sidhu said, “The department constituted a gram Sabha for a non-existing village and took development grants. A legal notice was also sent to the state for conducting a probe but no action was taken,” he told the court.
He said that the court directed the state government to conclude the inquiry into the entire matter and placed it on record on adjourned date of September 7 the court.
The village reportedly received grants worth Rs 2.59 lakhs under MNREGA and the number of houses in the village listed is 59 but the government’s revenue department does not have any records of it which is illegal as per the law, the advocate said.
When contacted, Block development and panchayat officer (BDPO) Pawanpreet Kaur said, “A department inquiry is going on into the matter and a reply will be submitted in the matter before the high court.”