The Vigilance Bureau has chargesheeted senior IAS officer S S Verma for his alleged role in the Rs 400 crore scam involving illegal sale of nearly 200 acres of government land.

A total of 113 government officials, including Bihar and Jharkhand Administrative Service officers Naresh Singh, Subodh Prasad Gupta, Rajesh Kumar and J N Singh who had retired from service, have been chargesheeted.

The CBI, in its chargesheet filed before a special court here on Thursday, has held that Verma, a 1981 batch IAS officer, currently under suspension in the disproportionate assets case, was instrumental in transferring government land title to private parties in 1994. Verma was then South Chotanagpur Divisional Commissioner in Ranchi. He allegedly perpetrated the scam with the help of junior government staff including Singh, Gupta and Kumar of the Revenue Department.

The scam had surfaced after the then Bihar Revenue Minister Inder Singh Namdhari had made public the illegal sale of the government land.

The then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad had announced that the scam would be probed by a joint House committee. After the committee submitted its report, 10 FIRs were filed against Verma and others during 2000-02. The chargesheets were filed in eight of them, IG (Vigilance) told The Indian Express.