Ex-police officer accuses Pawar of mega Lavasa scam, also says Kejriwal repressed it

New Delhi/Mumbai, Oct. 18 (ANI): Retired police officer and lawyer-activist Y.P. Singh on Thursday accused Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar of perpetrating a "mega-scam" in the controversial hill town of Lavasa, near Pune over 25,000 acres of land at a reported cost of 3,000 crores.

He also claimed that social activist-turned politician Arvind Kejriwal had repressed this information.

Pawar, however, denied any wrong doing in the matter, and said:"Everything was done according to policy."

Pawar also refuted charges that he had intervened in the Lavasa project because his daughter Supriya Sule and her husband had once owned a stake in the company building the township.

"The chief minister made me responsible for project since it was in my district. What's wrong with that?" asked Mr Pawar.

Y.P. Singh described Kejriwal, with whom he once worked closely, as resembling Hitler.

He also accused social activist Anna Hazare of having a soft corner for Pawar. Singh claimed that he and Kejriwal had jointly flagged the corruption related to the Lavasa project over two years ago, but was now compelled to go public on it alone today because Kejriwal had failed to expose Pawar.

Referring Kejriwal's allegations against BJP president Nitin Gadkari, Singh said they were frivilous compared to to what had taken place in the Lavasa project. "The real scam was executed by Mr. Pawar and his family with land that had been acquired for an irrigation project in Maharashtra. The Irrigation Minister was Ajit Pawar, the nephew of Sharad Pawar. More land than needed had been acquired from farmers," said Singh, adding that a Supreme Court judgement makes it obligatory for the government to either use this sort of surplus land for public projects, or to auction it.

Instead, he alleged that in 2002, a company named the Lake City Corporation got 348 acres on a 30-year lease for Rs. 23,000 a month. "A tiny one-bedroom flat in Mumbai costs more to rent," the former cop said.

The reason that the government was so generous with this deal, he said, is because Supriya and Sadanand Sule held a 20 per cent stake in the company.

Ramesh Kumar, an IAS officer was then Principal Secretary of the Revenue Department, which keeps records of all government-owned land. He allegedly asked for an inquiry into the transaction. However, Singh claims, then Revenue Minister Narayan Rane, also from Pawar's party, rejected permission to go ahead with the inquiry.

In 2006, Singh says the Sules' sold their stake in the company that would morph into the Lavasa Corporation.

He says that in 2009, when Supriya Sule was obliged to declare her assets as a Member of Parliament, she said she was worth 15 crores.

The activist says she blatantly misreported the facts because Axis Bank had evaluated the Lavasa Corporation at 10,000 crores, so her 10 per cent stake (and another 10 per cent held by her husband) would have been several hundred crores. He described this as "a huge money-laundering exercise."

Singh says that Lavasa reaped more windfalls.

In 2009, he says Sharad and Ajit Pawar ordered senior bureaucrats to meet them at a guesthouse within the Lavasa premises.

There, they ruled in favour of a request from the Lavasa Corporation which allowed the firm to add several floors to its building plans.

Essentially, the Floor to Area Ratio (FAR) and other rules were relaxed so that Lavasa could build much more than usually permitted.

These concessions were recorded in the minutes of the meeting, he alleged. "How did Sharad Pawar hold a meeting with Maharashtra officials in the Lavasa guest house? He was Union Agriculture Minister; what jurisdiction did he have?" he asked. Lavasa had been taken to court in 2010 by an NGO for violating the terms of its environmental clearances. It was forced to stop construction till it was given conditional permission in November to proceed with its plans. (ANI)

After Robert Vadra, Salman Khurshid, Nitin Gadkari now we haveSharad Pawar with his daughter Supriya Sule. We all know that Sharad Pawar is Pawar. I hope Y. P Singh provides the documents to take action on him, if the Congress party would dare to do so. Coalition dharma as our PM Mr. Manmohan Singh would say, would prevent him unless he is prodded by the Supreme Court. Here is another daughter causing problems for her doting father. Suppriya Sule, daughter of strongman Sharad Pawar seems to have her hands in many pies just Kanimozhi, daughter of Karunanidhi.

Both their accounts run into thousands of crores.

You can bet the CBI or income-tax department will never raid their premises or the premises of Robert Vadra who made a capital gain of 51.5 crores in just 3 months. How much income tax have they paid?

As Anna said, CBI should be taken away from the central Government. I suggest the Income Tax department should also be taken away from the central government.

Both should work independently