RUDRAPUR: Over a month after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the NH-74 scam provided what it termed was “incriminating evidence against four officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)” to the agency’s head office in Delhi, the team has claimed that it has been denied permission by the NHAI head office to go ahead with the prosecution of the identified officers. According to sources, the SIT probe has found 25 dubious cases where the role of NHAI officials is being checked, and needed the head office go-ahead, as per protocol, to proceed with the prosecution. TOI tried to contact NHAI officials for their version but did not get a response.The sources said that in the first week of August, the circle officer (CO) Rudrapur , Swatantra Kumar Singh, who is heading the SIT, met NHAI officials at the Delhi headquarters personally and sought permission for prosecution of the accused officers — three project directors and an assistant project director — while handing them the evidences. A few days back, though, the SIT received a letter from NHAI denying permission, the sources said.The issue of the highway authority’s engineers being involved in the scam has been a prickly one. Union minister for road transport and highways NitinGadkari had in April last year, taken a strong objection to the Uttarakhand government’s proposal to initiate a CBI enquiry into the case saying that the move will have an adverse effect on the morale of NHAI officers if they are investigated. Subsequently, in May last year, NHAI officials whose names had figured in FIRshad approached the Nainital HC for quashing of the FIRs against them.In September 2017, Udham Singh Nagar’s senior superintendent of police Sadanand Date had said that during 3G notification of the land acquisition and compensation process, which authorizes the state to decide the compensation to be given against land acquired, the NHAI officials’ role was significant. “They could have gone in arbitration claiming that the compensation being offered was more and land was not as categorized. But they did so in only 90 cases, while the probe has revealed that there were more than 300 cases pertaining to irregularities,” the SSP had said.On Saturday, while speaking to TOI, Date said, “NHAI officials in their clarification to their authorities have said that they have been ringing the bell against irregularities for the last two years and they were not directly involved in distributing the compensation. However, our investigation will go on nevertheless.”Meanwhile, observers said that regardless of the decline in permission by NHAI headquarters, the officials named in the case diary submitted by the SIT will have to face trial in the court. Surendra Girdhar, advocate at district court, said, "NHAI officers while being quizzed by SIT had given them enough clues against suspended PCS officers. When they will appear as witnesses in the court, they will have to face questions regarding their role too.” In a related development, former CM Harish Rawat on Saturday attacked the BJP government for "shielding NHAI officials from the probe". "It is not possible that the excess compensation for land was made as part of the scam and NHAI officials remained unaware of it", he said.

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