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Amarinder guilty in multi-crore
land scam: Punjab Assembly
WSN Bureau
 CHANDIGARH:
For
months, former CM Amarinder Singh remained sidelined because of his
itinerant ways. Then came the jubilation when he was made the Punjab
Congress Campaign Committee chairperson. But just when he was on a
new high has come his indictment at the hands of an Assembly panel
in a land scam. On Wednesday, the Assembly is widely expected to
take a crucial decision about how to deal with Amarinder Singh.
There is talk even about his possible expulsion from the Assembly.
A Special
Committee of the House probed into a land scam after a complaint
from fellow Congressman Bir Devinder Singh and found Amarinder, his
colleague Chowdhry Jagjit Singh, then Housing Minister late
Raghunath Sahai Puri and former Amritsar Improvement Trust chairman
Jugal Kishore Sharma responsible for conspiring to cause a direct
loss of around Rs 60 crore to the Trust by granting exemption to a
coloniser – Veer Colonisers and Builders Pvt Ltd - from acquisition
of its 32.1-acre prime land on the Amritsar-Jalandhar bypass road.
Amarinder has
termed the probe itself illegally constituted, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal
has still to come out strongly against Akalis on the issue, and Bir
Devinder has had no love lost for Amarinder. Three Congress members
of the probe panel attended many hearings but now the party says the
panel had no business to probe. The Akalis are making a lot of
capital out of it all.
Probe report
tabled in the Assembly says Amarinder broke rules, showed haste,
interest in granting exemption to coloniser, despite objections,
showed "undue haste and interest" in dealing with files and paid
scant regard to rules despite strong opposition by government
officials. Meanwhile, Amarinder has secured permission from a
Ludhiana court hearing the City Centre case to go abroad. He is
flying off on September 10 to UK. Here is the story in brief: The
Trust issued a notification for acquiring 188 acres on December 5,
2003. Veer Colonisers requested the government to exempt its 32.1
acres from acquisition and said it has already applied for a license
to set up a private colony on this land. Once exempted from
acquisition, the colonizer could have used the land for a colony
with windfall gains.
The Amritsar
Trust, however, dismissed the colonizers' plea. The government also
approved the Trust resolution. Trust chairperson and Congress leader
Ratna also opposed any license to Veer Colonisers. In November,
2004, then Housing Minister Puri asked the CM to exempt the land for
the colonizer. The Local Bodies Department opposed it. Chief
Secretary Jai Singh Gill was told the exemption won't be in the
Trust's interest. The CS agreed. And the CM too sided with the CS.
Meanwhile, Ratna was removed and Jugal Kishore Sharma appointed in
her place the same day – September 9, 2004. The colonizer was back,
asking for exemption. Now, Chowdhry Jagjit asked the CM to allow
exemption. CM approved the request, overruling himself. Kishore
rammed through a resolution without showing it in the agenda of a
Trust meeting.
Now, Amarinder
has been left to fend for himself and it is still to be seen how the
party reacts to it all.
10 September 2008
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