Bilaspur. During the hearing in the High Court on the case of royalty irregularities of Rs 3 crore 80 lakh in the construction works of the Forest Department in Pendra area, not a single royalty receipt was presented by the Forest Department. The department said that the royalty is kept in their office. The court has directed the petitioner to file a reply to the government’s reply, and the next hearing of the case will be after three weeks. The case is related to the construction of 121 anicuts (small dams) in the forest area of Pendra. Mineral materials like sand and ballast were supplied through a large number of trucks and tippers for this construction work. According to the rules, payment was to be made only after taking the royalty receipt from every vehicle, but the Forest Department made full payment to the mineral transporters without seeing the receipt. In this, the government was to get royalty of about Rs 3 crore 80 lakh.
Social worker and advocate Pushpraj Singh filed an RTI in the Forest Department regarding this irregularity. He was assured of receipts from the office of DFO and Range Officer several times, but later it was found that the royalty slips were in the office of Forest Conservator Bilaspur. After the complaint, the Mining Department started its investigation, and Pushpraj Singh filed a PIL in the High Court in this matter through Advocate Bhaskar Pyaasi.
The case was heard in the division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Guru. The petitioner’s lawyer said that the government has not presented a single receipt in the court, while they were claiming that the receipts were with the Forest Department. The government said that the slips are present in the office of the Forest Department. The court directed the petitioner to submit a reply and the next hearing of the case was fixed after 3 weeks.
