Industrialist Deepak Gupta owns hundreds of acres land in Odisha illegally

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Belpahar (Jharsuguda), Jan 14:

Industrialist and director of Deepak Steel and Power Ltd, Deepak Gupta, who has been remanded to judicial custody by the court of Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM), Khordha on the charge of his complicity in the much-talked-about multi-crore Uliburu mining scam, has illegally acquired hundreds of acres of land from six villages around Lakhanpur block of Jharsuguda district.

Deepak Gupta

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has lodged a complaint and begun investigation into the case.

It may be noted that Deepak’s father Haricharan Gupta, who also is a director of Deepak Steel and Power Ltd, had issued a Power of Attorney to Om Prakash Singhal, a resident of Kabir Chowk, Raigarh of Chhattisgarh.

The company acquired and registered 554.63 acres of land at Lakhanpur sub-registrar office, most of which are farm lands.

The patta (land documents), issued for 221.56 acres land by the Odisha government, were subsequently converted to industrial land acquired from Badimal, Badadhara, Kanaktora, Jharagon, Kanjijharan and Kuhakunda villages under Lakhanpur block.

The land scam came to fore after some of the land owners alleged that the land has been handed over to the industrialist without their knowledge.

Acting on the complaint, former tehsildar of Lakhanpur, Basant Dash later lodged a complaint under OLR ACT-73 (C) and had summoned Gupta to be present in the tehsil within a week, failing which action was also threatened.

The Revenue minister of Odisha had also acknowledged the scam and ordered an investigation by the collector into this, following which the collector of Jharsuguda had submitted a 27-page report to the state government on August 30 last year.

According to the report, the procurement of land in Lakhanpur block was illegal.

The state government had assured that the land without patta will go back to the respective land owners while it would take away the land having patta.

However, the case has been stuck under the red tape.

Also, the address of Deepak Steel and Power Ltd has turned out to be false as letters sent with the address as ‘Buddharam Oram, Birsardhar Market Road, Rourkela – 761092’ asking Deepak to be present for a hearing, has bounced back, said Lakhanpur tehsildar Dolamani Patel.