CM promises probe into Gwal Pahari land row
Several BJP legislators side with opposition in demand for a CBI probe; INLD, Cong members walk out
CHANDIGARH: Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar promised an inquiry into the controversial land deals in Gwal Pahari area in Gurgaon.
Khattar made the announcement on the floor of the House on Friday after several members of the opposition – Congress and INLD – and those of his own party (BJP) raised the issue of irregularities related to ownership of about 464 acres of prime land in Gwal Pahari area.
The land controversy got revived after the then deputy commissioner TL Satyaprakash passed an order on January 2, divesting over 464 acres of prime land said to be worth over Rs 3,000 crore from the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG), that was being claimed by private real estate developers and individuals. He was shifted from Gurgaon and the divisional commissioner, Gurgaon, D Suresh had later stayed his order.
Gurgaon MLA Umesh Agrawal and several members of the opposition had alleged that it was an attempt to favour In what appeared to be an embarrassment to the ruling BJP in the House, several of its own MLAs were seen standing in support of Congress and INLD MLAs, who sought a CBI probe into the matter. Even as ruckus prevailed in the House with the Congress MLAs led by Choudhry, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Dalal, the BJP MLA from Gurugram Umesh Agrawal also demanded CBI probe. Though he was not allowed to speak on the issue, he remained adamant on speaking and repeatedly said he would not let the village land go to private builders. Other party MLAs, including Mool Chand Sharma, Dinesh Kaushik, Randhir Kapriwas, could also be seen standing while Agrawal spoke without permission when Khattar was speaking. When another BJP MLA asked Agrawal to sit with opposition if he so supported them, Agrawal loudly said in the House that he would go with anyone who was against builders in this case. builders. The sequence of events has been a huge embarrassment for the Khattar government as deputy commissioner had passed the order after receiving a communication from principal secretary, industries, Devender Singh to decide the matter within six weeks, citing
instructions to this effect from the chief minister and chief secretary.
Khattar, who had intervened in the reply being given by urban local bodies minister Kavita Jain, to the calling-attention motion of several opposition
MLAs, including Kiran Choudhry, Karan Dalal and Zakir Hussain, assured the House of an inquiry not only into the land deals in the said area, but all land issues of Gurugram, Faridabad and Nuh.
As din prevailed in the House
on the issue, Choudhry and Dalal kept on alleging that the state government appeared to be in a tearing hurry to transfer the land to the builders. “What were the reason that the chief secretary himself asked the Gurugram DC to quickly decide the case had chief minister himself not desired so?” they said.
Without naming officials, Dalal also said the intention of the chief minister might be good, but some officials sometimes worked in a crafty manner that they could be “using’’ the chief minister for their own interests.
Khattar said more than 526 sale purchases and mutations were made from the year 1992 to 2012. The special economic zone (SEZ) developers were given no-encumbrance certificate and concurrences during 2005 to 2012. The orders of high court pronounced in February 2014 allowed the SEZ developers to get approvals and get these renewed during pendency of the title case. He said that as per the rules of business 1977, the gov- ernment could exercise general superintendence and control on any department including revenue department and added that no decision was influenced.
He further said that in 1989, the then deputy commissioner of Gurgaon, Harbaksh Singh, passed the first order on the Gwal Pahari land and since then the issue had been “remanded’’ several times in quasi judicial courts.
“Now, by taking a historic decision, the government has abolished the ‘remand’ system so as to ensure that land-related disputes in the revenue courts could be settled at the earliest,” he said. Choudhry, however, sought to know if there were any other cases in which such hurry was evident.