Beed’s ex-district collector held in Rs310cr land acquisition scam linked to Dhule-Solapur NH project

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: IAS officer and Beed's former district collector Avinash Prabhakar Pathak (55) was arrested on Thursday from his Latur residence in an alleged Rs310 crore scam involving fabricated backdated orders, forged files and documents to facilitate enhanced compensation in land acquisition for the Dhule-Solapur National Highway project passing through Beed district.Pathak is the fourth suspect to be arrested in the case. Beed's assistant superintendent of police Venkat Ram said, "We have secured a transit remand from Latur court and will produce Pathak before the court in Beed on Friday to seek his custodial remand."Additional Superintendent of Police Sachin Pandkar, who heads an SIT probing the case, told TOI, "Technical analysis of cellphone call records and recordings recovered from the arrested accused, along with forensic examination of Pathak's handwriting and signature samples, helped us in establishing his role. Based on technical and documentary evidence, Pathak was taken into custody for further questioning."Pandkar said Pathak was transferred to the state fisheries department on completion of his tenure as Beed collector. As of now, he holds no post.In Nov last year, an inquiry panel set up by Pathak's successor Vivek Johnson had initially established misappropriation of Rs73.4 crore by way of a criminal conspiracy and a racket involving state staffers, among others. The amount of alleged misappropriation jumped to Rs310 crore in the subsequent investigation.The Shivajinagar police in Beed registered an FIR on Nov 19, 2025, based on a revenue official's complaint. The police then arrested assistant revenue officer Sanjay Hange, operator on contract Sheikh Azhar Sheikh Babu and retired employee (on contract) Trimbak Pingale. They are in jail under judicial custody.Latur's superintendent of police Amol Tambe told TOI on Thursday, "A special team from Beed approached us this (Thursday) morning for assistance in arresting the former district collector. Our team accompanied the Beed police to make the arrest in accordance with law."The police have invoked offences under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, claiming that the case involved forged arbitration and appeal orders allegedly issued in connection with land acquisition for the National Highway (NH) 211 project.The SIT officials said so far 10 accused have been named in the case and a chargesheet has been filed against three of them. The police said complainant and witness statements have been recorded, while CCTV footage, videos, audio clips, registers and other documents have been seized as evidence.The alleged irregularities surfaced after Beed collector Vivek Johnson and senior revenue officials inspected records at the land acquisition coordination office, Jayakwadi project land acquisition office and the sub-divisional office in Beed. During scrutiny of files and cellphone conversations of suspects, officials allegedly found repeated references to preparation of backdated orders. A committee formed thereafter found during preliminary inquiry that fake orders were allegedly issued in 154 cases by using the name, designation and purported signature of then district collector for the period between March 1 and April 17, 2025.Officials said forged orders reflecting enhanced compensation of nearly Rs241.62 crore were prepared. Of this, around Rs73 crore was allegedly released and distributed through the land acquisition office after funds were received from the National Highways Authority of India. The inquiry further found that several arbitration orders were allegedly passed on April 17, 2025, without proper entries in official registers or proceedings records. In nearly 50 such orders, there were allegedly no signatures of parties appearing before the authority, raising suspicion over the authenticity of the process.
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