Haryana Home Secy removed following graft charges

The Haryana government removed senior IAS officer Krishan Mohan as the state's home secretary after the Central Bureau of Investigation booked him and a real estate company in a graft case in a multi-crore mega project in the city.

The CBI on Monday booked former Union Territory Adviser Lalit Sharma (retired), former UT Home Secretary Krishna Mohan (presently home secretary, Haryana), former Director (Tourism) Vivek Atray, presently on leave, and Unitech builder that was awarded the project, a top CBI official said in Chandigarh on Wednesday.

Mohan has been posted as secretary of the forest department, an official spokesman said. Another senior IAS officer Samir Mathur, Secretary, Transport has been posted as home secretary of Haryana in place of Mohan, who was home secretary of Chandigarh Administration when the alleged graft case took place. 

Lalit Sharma retired as a senior IAS officer of the Union Territory cadre, while Atray, an officer of Haryana Civil Service who is on a two-month

leave, is presently working with a private consultancy firm. "We are still investigating the case," CBI DIG Mahesh Aggarwal said on being asked whether the investigating agency would arrest these officers after registration of the FIR under various sections of the IPC, including 420 (cheating), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

73.65 acres of land in Sarangpur village on the outskirts of the city was allotted to Unitech in December 2006 for the Theme-cum-Amusement project. Earlier, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had conducted a probe and detected irregularities in the process of awarding the project to Unitech Ltd, sources said. The Chandigarh Administration had scrapped the project in May this year, soon after the CVC referred the case to the CBI. The CBI is awaiting prosecution sanction from Centre and the Haryana government in case of Mohan and Atray respectively.