Chandigarh, 27 September(Wishav Warta): PCS officer Anand Sagar Sharma has been reinstated by Punjab government, who was one of the accused in the alleged Hoshiarpur Four Lane land scam. Sharma was suspended in March this year due to absence from duty.
He was SDM Giddarbaha but transferred by Election Commission after Vigilance Bureau booked him in the alleged land scam, wherein compensation was allegedly awarded at inflated rates to influential local leaders while acquiring land for four-laning of NH-70.
Punjab and Haryana High court had stayed Sharma’s arrest and he had got regular bail from the court.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), taking suo moto notice of the alleged scam, had also registered a money laundering case against former Hoshiarpur SDM Anand Sagar Sharma and 10 others in the multi-crore Hoshiarpur land scam, exposed by media in February 2016.
ED’s Jalandhar office statement had said that government officials and private parties allegedly colluded to show the commercial land as agricultural, causing a loss of Rs 58 crore to the state exchequer. The land was acquired for the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur-Chintpurni four-lane highway project. Sharma was then SDM of Hoshiarpur.