The Office of the Attorney General forwarded the alleged state land encroachment case to Punakha District Court on Monday. After dropping the case in November last year, OAG charged Shenga-Bjemi Gup of Punakha, Samten Phuntsho, for official misconduct in an alleged state land encroachment. OAG also charged his wife, two Sai Tshogpas and a land surveyor for their involvement in the case.
Initially, OAG dropped the case in November last year as the land case was considered Value, which means the land was not surveyed in the past. The Office also could not establish the practice of official misconduct against the gup. The gup then re-contested in the Local Government election.
When OAG received a letter from the ACC to reconsider the case with additional justifications the OAG formed a team to visit the site for verification.
The team visited the site in January and found that the plot was not verified during the National Cadastral Resurvey Program in 2011 although it was reflected in Chazhag thram.
While the team was at the site, the gup informed the team that 80 decimal state’s land was surveyed as they couldn’t locate his wife’s land.
According to ACC, as a gup, he had written an application on his wife’s behalf and later endorsed the letter in his capacity as Gup along with the other two Sai Tshogpa.
Following that, the surveyor and the Sai Tshogpas had endorsed the location and the boundary of the plot on the state land.
The case came to ACC’s radar after receiving a complaint against the gup for allegedly registering state land in his wife’s name.
Kinley Dem
Edited by Ashok Tirwa
