CBI registers PE against educational trust run by former JK minister Choudhary Lal Singh

The CBI has registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) to probe allegations of land grabbing and corruption by an educational trust run by ex-Jammu and Kashmir minister Choudhary Lal Singh, who had quit BJP following a row over the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua, officials said on Thursday.

The officials said that PE has been registered against R B Educational Trust of Kathua and unknown public servants to probe the allegations of illegal gratification and extraneous consideration by the revenue and forest officials of district Kathua in allowing sale and purchase of forest land.

According to the CBI”s PE, it is alleged that false certificates that such land comes under exempted category under JK Agrarian Reforms Act were used in its purchase by the educational trust, the officials said.

Singh, when contacted, refused to comment on the developments.

The preliminary enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) alleges that the trust, a beneficiary of such alleged illegal acts, continues to be in possession of huge tracts of land in gross violation of ceiling prescribed under Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, they said.