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Shielding A Corrupt Cartel?

Charges against his ministers pose a dilemma for Digvijay Singh

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Shielding A Corrupt Cartel?
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NOW it is a land scam which is threatening the ever-precarious stability of the Digvijay Singh government. Two senior ministers and three IAS officers have been indicted by the Madhya Pradesh Lok Ayukt in a Rs 13-crore land scam, taking the total number of ministers censured by the Lok Ayukt in the last three years to five. Besides, eight others, including Singh, are still facing inquiries on charges of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power. But with the exception of former tribal minister Dayal Singh Tumrachi, everyone else has survived in his respective office and many have even been promoted.

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Not that this has deterred the special police establishment of the Lok Ayukt from registering a case against Deputy Chief Minister Pyarelal Kanwar, Cooperative Minister B.R. Yadav, IAS officers U.K. Samal, Hoshiyar Singh and S.P. Trivedi and state administrative officers S.P. Shukla and M.L. Mittal under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. They are accused of facilitating allotment of land in Jabalpur worth Rs 13 crore to the Motor Parts Dealers Welfare Association for a mere Rs 16 lakh.

The filing of an FIR on the basis of a Lok Ayukt report has sparked off a row and given much ammunition to the Opposition. "The state cabinet has become a corruption cartel flourishing under Digvijay Singh's leadership," says Vikram Verma, leader of the Opposition in the state assembly. And former BJP chief minister Sunderlal Patwa, demanding a CBI inquiry, claims that the allotment was made at the behest of the chief minister, which is why he is shielding those indicted by the Lok Ayukt. "Otherwise they would expose him (Digvijay) too," he points out.

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But the chief minister defends his minis -ters and refuses to acknowledge that they have been indicted. Curiously, Singh who started his tenure three years ago with a claim to provide a clean government has spent most of his time either ensuring his government's survival or defending his government on corruption charges. To establish his credentials, he removed Tumrachi after he was indicted by the Lok Ayukt in 1994 in a Rs 34,000 bribery case. But since then corruption charges have largely been ignored. A year ago the Lok Ayukt indicted the then deputy chief minister, Subhash Yadav, over the appointment of two dozen sub-engineers on the mandi board. Singh refused to take any action at the time but he claims that Yadav's portfolio was changed as per the Lok Ayukt report (see interview). Another minister, Mukesh Nayak, was indicted by the Lok Ayukt for transferring a college principal who refused to grant admission to a candidate under the sports quota he was not eligible for.

Significantly, barring a few exceptions, a host of cabinet members, including the chief minister himself, have been accused of corruption in some deal or the other. This has made for a ticklish situation. If Singh removes the ministers, he would risk making enemies at a time when he is apprehensive over Arjun Singh's return to the Congress. Arjun Singh, who still has a large following among Madhya Pradesh ministers and MLAs, is said to be of the opinion that Digvijay spared no chance to humiliate him when he left the Congress.

Meanwhile, the land scam threatens to make life difficult for Singh. According to the yet-to-be-made-public Lok Ayukt report, in 1981, land in Jabalpur's Madhotal area belonging to one Gaytri Devi was declared surplus under the Urban Land Ceiling Act. The seeds of the scandal were sown when she applied for exemption under Section 20 of the Act in 1982, saying this was to hon-our an agreement she had entered into with the dealers' association, for these motor parts traders wanted to move to the Madhotal area.

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The then revenue minister rejected the application in August 1984 but a month later the then under-secretary in the Revenue Department noted that the land be handed over to the association once it was vested with the government. The then special secretary of the department, U.K. Samal, endorsed the note which, according to the Lok Ayukt report, was never presented again before the minister.

The allotment became controversial soon after a change of government in 1985. Objections by the town and country planning boards in the meantime blocked the smooth passage of the deal. But in 1987 a meeting of the association with the then revenue minister, B.R. Yadav, cleared the way. Ignoring his earlier order against the association, dated April 23, 1987, he cleared the case in their favour. Despite objections by senior of ficials, Yadav based his clearance order on a favourable note prepared by his deputy secretary M.L. Mittal.

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This reversal "on wholly unsubstantiated grounds gives rise to the suspicion that Mittal and Yadav were influenced on extraneous considerations", says the Lok Ayukt. But Yadav was stripped of the revenue portfolio two days later and the clearance note remained just on paper. The BJP government, which came to power in 1990, complicated the case further by ordering a fresh probe. Interestingly, a formal application for the allotment of the land was made by the association only in March 1991. (The 1984 and 1988 allotment orders were on the basis of Gaytri Devi's exemption application.) AFTER the Congress came to power in the state, the association presented Singh with a formal memorandum. And on June 16, 1994, the inter-departmental committee (IDC) which clears allotment proposals met to consider the application. The meeting, which was chaired by Kanwar in his capacity as revenue minister, put a seal on the allotment. All this was done on the basis of the 1984 order which, according to the Lok Ayukt, was unautho-rised and illegal in nature because it was never approved by the minister.

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The report adds that the land was allotted as per the inflated claims of the association for its members, including plots for residential purposes. Thus the 23 lakh sq ft of land was allotted to the association at a rate of Rs 0.59, as against the market value of Rs 120 per sq ft. "A number of circumstances strongly suggest that the decision taken in the meeting of the IDC was a deliberate abuse of authority to favour and benefit the association, unmindful of the common good or public interest," says Lok Ayukt Justice G.P. Singh, who retires this March.

And Singh's admission that he forwarded the association memorandum to Kanwar, but without any instructions, is likely to make for further inquiry. But then, living on the edge seems to have become a habit for the chief minister.

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