AK Antony seeks report on army land scam

Defence minister AK Antony has called for a comprehensive report on the effort by an obscure education trust, with tacit support of some senior army officers, to pocket at least two major chunks of land under army control, or requiring its clearance.

DNA had reported on Thursday how the same trust, floated by three Kolkata-based companies , had tried to obtain the land — one in Bengal measuring about 50 acres, and another in Uttaranchal measuring about 70 acres — and how army officers manipulated documents to favour them.

In the first case, documents were forged at the 33 Corps headquarters in Sukna in West Bengal to give the trust the necessary security clearance. This piece of land is just outside the helipad of the critical corps that looks after most parts of the China border in the northeast. The land, belonging to the West Bengal government, requires army clearance for any activity.

Lt general PK Rath, chief of the 33 Corps who was to take over as the next deputy chief of army staff in Delhi from November 1, has now been attached to the Kolkata-based eastern army command for an inquiry. In Haldwani, Uttarakhand, at the Kumaon Regimental Centre, senior officers are under the scanner for a similar move. In both the cases, the trust was supposed to start a franchise of Ajmer’s famed Mayo College, but the latter told army authorities that they had not authorised any trust.

Antony’s order comes in the light of the fact that the trust could not have carried out such a operation without support from some sections of the army top brass, especially since it enjoyed strong support from senior officers at locations.