Barabati Land Grab Case: SC Accepts CBI Closure Report On Sports Administrator Ashirbad Behera

New Delhi/Cuttack: The Supreme Court on Monday accepted the CBI closure report on Cuttack’s Barabati Stadium land grabbing case against former Odisha Olympic Association (OAA) general secretary Ashirbad Behera.

The court said that the CBI found no prosecutable evidence during the probe to prove criminality on the part of Behera though the report of the Accountant General had alleged certain irregularities in the manner in which the rentals of the shops had been accounted for.

The central agency also told the court that there was no wrongdoing on part of the then secretary of OOA or the INCON Associates, a private firm with his son and son-in-law as partners, in the management of the wedding hall at the stadium.

THE CASE

A case under Sections 120 (b) and 420 of the IPC against Behera, M/s Incon Associates and unknown officials of OOA for ‘illegal construction’ of a Kalyan Mandap and 23 shops on an encroached 0.705-acre government land.

Twenty-three shops and the wedding hall were constructed on an encroached 0.705 acre. It was adjacent to 20.808 acre, which the state government leased out to the association in 1949 for construction of Barabati Stadium.

In its defence, the association claimed it had leased out the place for financial benefit.

In 2014, the Orissa High Court directed the state Crime Branch to investigate the affairs of the association. Behera challenged the decision in the Supreme Court and got an interim stay order in January 2015. Three months later, the apex court, however, held the association guilty of encroaching and also ordered the Cuttack district administration to take possession of the property.

Following SC’s direction, the accountant general of Odisha also made an assessment of the accounts of Barabati Palace and the report indicated alleged fiscal impropriety by OOA. The state government intensified the controversy by alleging in the apex court that the arrangement was so made with the sole purpose of benefiting M/s INCON Associates, which had Ashirbad’s elder son and son-in-law as partners. The firm constructed Barabati Palace.

In June 2017, CBI registered a case against him and raided the Olympic association’s offices and his residence in connection with the alleged financial irregularities and the land-grab case.

In December 2017, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also charged Ashirbad under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, for encroaching u[on prime government land and using it for his personal business interests. His elder son was also an accused in the case as his firm built a wedding hall and ran several business units on the encroached land.