The Allahabad High Court has directed the Lucknow Police Commissioner to conduct an inquiry into serious allegations of land grabbing and intimidation levelled against policemen of the Gomti Nagar police station. The court also ordered that the probe cover a property deed executed in the name of a police officer’s wife.
A division bench comprising Justice Sangeeta Chandra and Justice Brijraj Singh passed the order on Tuesday while hearing a petition filed by Arvind Kumar Sharma. The court instructed the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Gomti Nagar, to submit the investigation report through a personal affidavit by September 24, the date fixed for the next hearing.
According to petitioner’s counsel, advocate Aviral Jaiswal, Sharma had purchased a total of 2,250 sq ft of land in Khargapur in 2004 and 2008. However, since 2018, a man named Salim had allegedly been trying to forcibly dispossess him of the property.
On November 2, 2020, when attempts were made to illegally occupy the land, Sharma’s son alerted the police. Instead of protecting the owner, the then Khargapur outpost in-charge allegedly pressured the family to sell the land to the encroachers.
The petitioner further claimed that Awadhesh Singh, then posted at Gomti Nagar police station, threatened his son that unless the land was sold, their construction would be bulldozed. Another inspector, Arvind Pant, is also accused of issuing similar threats.
Despite repeated complaints, the petitioner alleged that no action was taken by senior police or administrative officials. Instead, Salim’s father, Mohammad Hanif, executed a deed in favour of Urmila Singh, wife of Awadhesh Singh, with the boundaries of the petitioner’s land marked in the document.
Sharma claimed that since then, the local police, in connivance with the accused officers, had continued to pressurise him to vacate the land. His pleas to the Police Commissioner and District Magistrate yielded no response, and his application before the Chief Judicial Magistrate was dismissed on the ground that the matter was a civil dispute.
Taking note of the allegations, the High Court directed a high-level probe by the Police Commissioner to ascertain the truth of the claims, including the circumstances surrounding the deed executed in the name of the policeman’s wife.
The matter will now be taken up on September 24, when the investigation report is expected to be placed before the bench.
