Dehradun, Sep 11: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday suspended two Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers in connection with the NH 74 land scam. According to a tweet by ANI, the two officers are Pankaj Kr Pandey and Chandresh Kr Yadav. The NH 74 land scam in Uttarakhand involves irregularities worth Rs 300 crore in the acquisition of farmland for the proposed NH-74 between 2011-2016.

Earlier in August, the Uttarakhand government had summoned the two officers- Pankaj Kr Pandey and Chandresh Kr Yadav after findings unearthed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) were submitted. Rawat had assured that those found guilty in National Highway (NH) 74 land scam will be severely punished. "I had said it earlier as well. Be it a junior level official or any  bureaucrat, no one will be spared," the chief minister said.

According to a report by ANI, the agricultural land was shown as non-agricultural land to increase the compensation by up to 20 times for some persons. Most of the land in question is located in Jaspur, Kashipur, Bajpur and Sitarganj areas.

In February, the special investigation team (SIT) began a probe in the NH-74 land acquisition and compensation scam and had filed a charge-sheet against 12 people. Reports inform that Circle officer (CO) of Rudrapur, Swatantra Kumar Singh, who was heading the SIT, appeared before the Crime Prevention Court in Nainital and submitted the charge-sheet containing 5,804 pages and statements of 77 witnesses.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 11, 2018 03:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).