STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: The BJP approached the poll panel on Sunday and sought rejection of the candidature of Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan nominee Kanta Andotra, in the District Development Council (DDC) elections in Jammu and Kashmir, alleging that she did not disclose information related to a CBI case against her in the nomination papers.
Andotra, the wife of Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan founder and former minister Choudhary Lal Singh, is fighting the DDC elections from the Keediya-Gandyal constituency in Kathua district.
Andotra is an accused in a case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against her educational trust and some government officials over alleged encroachment on a huge tract of government land.
In a letter to the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer, BJP leader Hunar Gupta demanded the rejection of the candidature of Andotra, saying her name figured as an accused in the CBI FIR and accusing her of “misrepresentation and concealing” information in her nomination papers.
Gupta said the DSS leader stands booked by the CBI and “the concealment of this important fact from nomination papers warrants strict legal action against her.”
In September, the CBI registered the case against R B Education Trust, some people associated with it, and several government officials, including a former deputy commissioner of Kathua.
The agency had in June registered a preliminary enquiry on the allegations of encroachment on a huge tract of public/government/forest land in Kathua by certain persons in violation of the J&K Agrarian Reforms Act in connivance with revenue and forest officials.
It was alleged that the accused were involved in a conspiracy with the educational trust through its chairperson to allow the trust to retain land beyond the permissible ceiling limit of 100 standard kanal by deliberately giving wrong exemption of 32 kanals of grazing land and showing the land as “orchard”.
It was also alleged that the educational trust, in connivance with the other accused, got done wrong calculation of standard kanal of the land measuring 316 kanal and 17 marlas to escape the ceiling imposed by the law, the CBI had said.