The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch J&K has submitted a chargesheet against former revenue department officials and a businessman in an alleged land fraud case, officials said on Thursday.
According to the EOW, the chargesheet filed under relevant Sections of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) and Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, was submitted before the Court of the Special Judge, Anti-Corruption, Srinagar.
The investigation revealed that businessman Habibullah Bhat, a resident of Umarhair area of Buchpora; retired naib tehsildar Mohammad Rajab Reshi, a resident of Brein Nishat; and then patwari Syed Khurshid Ahmad, a resident of Lar in Ganderbal, had colluded to tamper with official land records.
The case originated from a written complaint alleging that a fraudulent mutation of 10 marlas of land at Zoonimar in Eidgah had been executed in favour of the accused beneficiary (Bhat) on the pretext of a sale deed, the officials said. The investigation found no such sale deed had been registered by the sub-registrar concerned.
Since the digitisation and mapping process of land records began in Jammu and Kashmir, organised crime syndicates, especially the land mafia in the UT, have been hit hard by the recent investigations.
Numerous cases of land fraud were investigated after officials were found colluding with influential men tampering with official records.
In 2025 alone, the EOW has filed chargesheets in 13 high-profile land scams, involving over 70 per cent of revenue officials colluding in fake mutations and compensation frauds.
They said the accused, Bhat, in a criminal conspiracy with the then patwari and naib tehsildar, manipulated revenue records and fraudulently recorded mutation entries on the basis of a non-existent sale deed.
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