Top general chargesheeted in Sukna land scam

Senior army officer Lieutenant General Avadesh Prakash was chargesheeted in Sukna land scam case on Tuesday with the army accusing him of trying to help secure defence land for a private realtor to set up a school near Siliguri West Bengal.

After the reconvened Court of Inquiry (COI) was completed earlier this month, the army initiated the summary of evidence against him at the Eastern Command headquarters in Kolkata from Tuesday and General Prakash was slapped with five charges. "In the summary of evidence, the army has charged Prakash with visiting Jodhpur and Ajmer to help the Geetanjali Educational Trust to get affiliation from Mayo college, visiting the Chumta tea estate before recommending to the 33 Corps commander to consider his friend Dilip Agarwal's proposal to build an

educational facility at the proposed site and trying to help him to get his proposal cleared by the Army," sources told PTI in Kolkata.

If the summary of evidence finds Prakash guilty, he would have to face a court martial in the case, they added. An earlier COI had indicted Praksh along with three other generals including Lieutenant General P K Rath, 11 Corps commander Lieutenant General Ramesh Halgali and Major General P K Sen for issuing No-objection Certificates to a private realtor for building an educational institution on a 70-acre land adjacent to Sukna military station in West Bengal. Prakash had appealed against the COI in the Armed Forces Tribunal which directed the Army to reconvene the COI in his case and allowed him to cross-examine witnesses who had earlier deposed against him in the inquiry.