Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda
The CBI has informed a Panchkula court that Bhupinder Singh Hooda, when he was Chief Minister of Haryana, agreed to leave out 13.74 acres in Manesar from the land acquisition process in 2007 and issued licence to a developer for a group housing society on the site following a request from Ghulam Nabi Azad, then Chief Minister of J&K. In its chargesheet on the Manesar land scandal, the CBI said Anil Goswami, then Principal Secretary to Azad, wrote to S S Dhillon, then Director, Town and Country Planning, Haryana, on July 26, 2007 “requesting for release of land of M/s Conway Developers Pvt Ltd from the acquisition process and to issue them a licence for a Group Housing Project as officers of All India Service of J&K cadre are interested to purchase flats in the applied site”.
Goswami’s letter stated that “the issue had already been taken up with Sh. Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Haryana by Ghulam Nabi Azad, Hon’ble Chief Minister, J&K in the larger interest of the All India service officers of J&K cadre”. The letter named an IAS and IPS officer of the J&K cadre who had been “asked to pursue the case with Government of Haryana”.
Within four months of the request, the land was dropped from the acquisition process and Hooda approved the grant of licence to the developer on November 25, 2007. The licence, the CBI said, was issued to the developer on May 7, 2008.
According to the CBI, Chhatar Singh, then Additional Principal Secretary to Hooda, sent a note to the Town and Country Planning Department — it was dated August 10, 2007 — in the matter of Conway Developers Pvt Ltd. On August 17, 2007, Anil Batra, Director, Conway Developers, sent a request to Hooda for release of land from the acquisition process and grant of licence.
The Town and Country Planning Department processed the application and Chhatar Singh passed an order on November 25, 2007 saying “CM has approved”.
Reached for comment, Goswami said, “I don’t remember anything on that. I would not like to say anything.” M/s Conway Builders Pvt Ltd figures in the CBI list of 34 booked on charges of corruption, cheating and criminal conspiracy in the Manesar land scandal.
Azad, now Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, told The Indian Express: “I don’t remember at all. You are referring to an 11-year-old communication. Secondly, it was a government-to-government communication. If what you are saying is correct, it is not my letter. The Principal Secretary has written. Even the Principal Secretary is not writing for himself. He is writing for government employees of the state. It is not for any particular individual or for a businessman.”
“Each government is entitled to protect the interests of the employees of the state. He doesn’t have any personal interest in it. And it is not for any individual or businessman or himself. This also shows how desperate the government is to bring in the name of a Congress leader. This shows the absolute desperation of the government,” he said.
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