Lakhs of gun licences issued in exchange for money in J&K, several bureaucrats under scanner, CBI tells court

It has completed investigations in both its FIRs, “establishing the criminality of 39 IAS/KAS officers and 71 gun house dealers resulting in filing of 13 chargesheets in the court and sending 15 CBI reports for prosecution sanction’’, it said.

However, a request for prosecution sanction against 13 DMs (district magistrates) including 13 IAS and three KAS officers is pending with the competent authority in J&K, the investigating agency pointed out.

Of these, the request for prosecution sanction against Rajeev Ranjan, Niraj Kumar and Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, all IAS officers, is pending since October 1, 2020. While Rajeev Rajan was DM Kupwara, Niraj and Shahid Iqbal were posted in Udhampur during 2012-16.

The request for prosecution sanction against two more IAS officers, Yasha Mudgal and Pandurang K Pole, who, too, served as DM Udhampur during the period, was sent to the competent authority on July 23, 2024, it added.

The other IAS officers who acted as DMs in different districts and against whom the CBI is awaiting prosecution sanction include Jitender Kumar Singh, Jitendra Kumar, G Prasanna Ramaswamy, Ramesh Kumar, who served as District Magistrate/ADM in Jammu division’s Udhampur, Poonch, Rajouri, Ramban and Kathua districts from time to time during 2012-16. Its request against Nissar Ahmad Wani, who served as DM, Poonch, is also pending with the competent authority.

The DMs who served in Kashmir Valley and Ladakh include Rajeev Ranjan, M Raju, G Prasanna Ramaswamy, Yasha Mudgal, and Neeraj Kumar, besides KAS officers – Abdul Hafeez Shah, Fida Hussain.

Apart from these IAS and KAS officers, its request for prosecution sanction against 11 judicial clerks is also pending, the status report revealed.

The status report in respect to CBI investigations into the illegal issuance of a large number of gun licences to ineligible people was filed by Deputy Solicitor General of India, Vishal Sharma, in response to court’s directions in a public interest litigation filed by Mohammad Shafi and another. The petitioners’ counsel Sheikh Shakeel Ahmad had requested the court to take judicial cognisance of the delay on part of J&K’s General Administration Department in grant of prosecution sanction against IAS officers found guilty in the matter.

Referring to their modus operandi, the investigating agency in its status report stated that “the licensing authority (DM), gun house dealers and other middlemen hatched a criminal conspiracy for issuance of arms licences illegally in favour of ineligible persons who were neither resident of nor posted under the jurisdiction of the district, in lieu of monetary consideration’’.

Pointing out that the gun dealers/middlemen “lured the defence personnel posted at faraway places for getting arms licences issued from J&K against monetary considerations’’, it said that the former provided application forms which were partially filled up by the applicants.

“The instances of cheating by way of forgery of application forms and recommendation letters on the part of licensing authority/judicial clerk, middlemen/gun dealers have been revealed during investigation conducted by the CBI,’’ it said, adding that “no police verification or enquiry was conducted by the concerned licensing authority to ascertain the genuineness of the applicant and his commanding officer’’