Bhopal: A 70-year-old anti-corruption activist has been jailed in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh for running a sustained campaign against illegal occupation of a housing co-operative society.

The housing society formed three decade back in the state capital of Bhopal was allegedly occupied by relatives and close associates of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other influential people.

The anti-graft crusader, J K Jain, was arrested and sent to jail on March 4, a day after the Minister for Co-operatives Gopal Bhargawa admitted in the state assembly about illegal occupation of Rohit Housing Co-operative society by 137 persons. Jain and others had formed the society in 1983.

The minister also promised action against the illegal occupants and to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations and other similar cases in the state. However, contrary to the minister’s announcement, the police sent to jail the crusader who has been fighting for justice since 2003.

“My husband was arrested and sent to jail like a hard-core criminal from the headquarters of the co-operative society building where he had gone to pursue the case further,” says Jain’s wife Shobha Jain, a retired government employee.

The 63-year-old woman, who now struggles for her husband’s release, said she escaped jail because she had got anticipatory bail from the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The couple is childless and there is no one to help them. “Even those people for whom Jain has been fighting” are not coming forward to help, she laments.

According to the police records presented in the court, they booked the couple for forgery, a charge Shobha dismisses as “absolutely baseless’”

She says her husband has been associated with the project since its formation and he held the post of director until 2000. “There was no complaint about him or me,” Shobha told mattersindia.com. She too was among the founding members of the society spread around 100 acres of land.

“But now after 15-years how come my husband and me face such serious charges?” she asks. According to her, those involved in the illegal act hatched a conspiracy with the police and put Jain behind the bars, as he is the only person who has material evidences against the illegal occupants of the housing society. The documents against Jain that the police presented before the court were fake to force him to shut his mouth before the SIT starts its probe, she added.

Devendra Mishra, a lawyer and Right to Information Act activist, says, nobody would have come to know about the couple if the police and others had succeeded in sending both the husband and the wife to jail.

The activist, who met Jain in the federal jail in Bhopal mid April, told mattersindia.com that “some of the illegal occupants in the housing society are close relatives and associates” of the chief minister and other influential people and “therefore the bureaucracy does not want any action against those involved in it.”

The activist’s claim collaborates with the accusation that former Opposition leader Ajay Singh made in the state Assembly in 2012. In a statement Singh accused the chief minister of protecting his relatives and associates who had illegally occupied plots in society. The chief minister denied the charge and promised action without any favoritism. However, nothing was done later.

Even though the government had appointed audit officer of Co-operative Society N S Hada as administrator of the controversial society in June, 2015, he has not yet been able to take possession of any documents of the society.

“Yes it is true I am appointed administrator of the society but only for name sake,” Hada told mattersindia.com explaining his inability to act against the mighty who are involved in the illegal deal.

Senior officials of the co-operative society admit in private that they are unable to act against those involved in it on account of pressure from a “High Office” in the state. “We get calls directly from this office (High Office) and our hands are tied,” says an official on condition of anonymity.

Officials claim finds merits as the government machinery remained silent on a direction from the Madhya Pradesh High Court for action against all illegal occupants in the society in June 2013 following a public interest litigation filed by Jain.

When the officials failed to comply with it, Jain had moved a contempt of court petition in the high court. The court then served notices on the officials of the Co-operative department in May 2015.