CBI court convicts DDA middleman

After more than a decade, Dharamvir Khattar, an alleged middleman in various DDA cases, was today sentenced to seven years in jail, besides being slapped with a whooping fine of Rs one crore by a special CBI court here.
Khattar was sentenced along with two engineers of DDA in connection with a case of grabbing a temple land in central Delhi and converting it into a hotel.
This case was filed separately by the CBI after he was booked in other cases of land grabbing that included a major DDA scam in which the then Vice Chairman Subhash Sharma and Additional Judge of Delhi High Court Shamit Mukherjee were allegedly involved.

In this case, besides Khattar, the then Junior Engineers of DDA -- M K Sharma and K M Johri -- were also sentenced to undergo a prison term of three-and-a-half years, besides a fine of Rs five lakh each.
The court also passed orders for the CBI to take possession of the authorised premises of Bhairon Mandir Samiti located at East Patel Nagar, Institutional Area Delhi and hand it over to Chairman of DDA.
The agency had registered the case on the allegations that Khattar entered into criminal conspiracy with two junior engineers of DDA and other unknown officials of DDA in order to cheat the government by using the premises of Bhairon Mandir, Samiti and Hari Chand Prakash Wanti Trust as a hotel against the declared land use for religious purposes.