Lucknow. On the orders of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the government has sent letters to the Center and the Manipur government to suspend the then Ghaziabad District Magistrate Nidhi Kesarwani and initiate departmental proceedings against her for irregularities in the Delhi-Meerut Expressway and Eastern Peripheral Expressway land acquisition case. . Originally a 2004 batch IAS officer of Manipur cadre, Nidhi is currently posted as Deputy Secretary in the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. The Chief Minister has also directed to register an FIR against Vimal Kumar Sharma, who was the District Magistrate of Ghaziabad before Nidhi Kesarwani.
This matter remained pending for almost five years in the government and in the meantime Vimal Kumar Sharma has also retired. Information about the order of the Chief Minister was given by his office on Wednesday through tweet. After this the appointment department swung into action and has sent letters to the Central Personnel and Training Department as well as the Manipur Chief Secretary to suspend Nidhi Kesarwani and initiate departmental proceedings against her.
The Chief Minister has directed to suspend the concerned Section Officer and Review Officer of the Appointment Department with immediate effect and initiate departmental proceedings against the Secretary responsible for the excessive delay in processing the file even after receiving the inquiry report.
This is the case : 31.77 km part of 82 km long Meerut-Delhi Expressway is in Ghaziabad. The notification of section 3A of the National Highway Act, 1956 was issued on 8 August 2011 for the acquisition of land for the expressway in Ghaziabad.
The intention to acquire land was expressed under this section. Notification under Section 3D for acquisition of land was issued in 2012. The award for the land to be acquired was announced in 2013. The farmers of four villages of Ghaziabad-Kushaliya, Dasna, Rasulpur Sikrod and Nahal villages approached the court against this award.
In the year 2016 and 2017, the District Magistrate Ghaziabad, in the capacity of arbitrator, decided to pay compensation at the rate of four times the circle rate of the land under the new law on land acquisition. On receiving the complaint, the then commissioner of Meerut division, Dr. Prabhat Kumar got the matter investigated. In his inquiry report submitted to the government on September 29, 2017, he had wrongly held that the purchase of land after the notification of Section 3D, increasing the rate of compensation by the arbitrator and giving compensation at the increased rate.
With the increase in the rate of compensation under arbitration, the compensation amount for these four villages increased from Rs 111 crore to Rs 486 crore. For this irregularity, he had blamed many officers and employees including the then DM Ghaziabad Vimal Kumar Sharma and Nidhi Kesarwani.
ADM and Amin were suspended: In this case, Ghanshyam Singh, former Additional District Magistrate (Land Adhyay) of Ghaziabad, after the notification of Section-3D, bought land in the name of his son in Nahal village and later got compensation at an increased rate. Amin Santosh had obtained higher compensation by buying land in the name of his wife and other relatives. Both were suspended after investigation.
Two DMs have been suspended: Under the policy of zero tolerance on corruption, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has suspended Auraiya District Magistrate Sunil Verma and Sonbhadra District Magistrate TK Shibu in his second term.
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