PUNE: The Pune anti-corruption bureau (ACB) has filed a closure report with a special court here, giving a clean chit to former state revenue minister
Eknath Khadse and other suspects in a controversial deal involving a 3.1 acre land at
MIDC Bhosari here.
Additional superintendent of police (ACB) Prasad Hasabnis told TOI on Tuesday, “We filed a closure report before special judge J T Utpat on Friday (April 27) on the grounds that there is no evidence to file a chargesheet against Khadse and other suspects. Following our investigation, we came to a conclusion that the
land deal is legal. We have recorded statements of around 20 persons, including Khadse, and examined around 600 documents."
In June 2016, Khadse had to resign as minister amid charges that he influenced government officials and helped his family members corner the plot belonging to the MIDC at a throwaway price of Rs 3.75 crore as against its value of Rs 31.01 crore.
Pune builder and
whistleblower Hemant Gawande, whose complaint formed the basis for the probe against Khadse, said, “I am yet to get any official intimation about the closure report from the ACB. I am the whistleblower in the case and, ideally, the ACB ought to have given me a copy of the closure report, but they have’nt even informed me about such report. Whatever I am learning about this matter is from the media.”
However, Gawande said, “I will decide on whatever legal remedies available with me now, after going through the contents of the report.”
On March 8 last year, the Bombay high court had directed the ACB to investigate the complaint which Gawande had filed with the Bund Garden police station on May 30, 2016 for a probe into the land deal. Gawande had moved the high court after police did not act on his complaint.
The ACB on April 10 last year lodged an
FIR and annexed Gawande’s complaint letter with the same for offences punishable under sections 13 (1) (d), 13 (2) and 15 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which deals with criminal misconduct by a public servant for obtaining pecuniary gains for him or any other person, and IPC Section 109 (abetment).
Khadse is also facing an independent judicial commission inquiry in the land dead case.
According to Gawande, "The complaint was lodged to probe the motive behind the land deal considering that Khadse's wife Mandakini and son-in-law Girish Chaudhari executed a sale deed on April 28, 2016, with the original land owner Abbas Ukani for Rs 3.75 crore as against its real value of Rs 31.01 crore." Ukani was also named in the FIR. The MIDC had acquired the land in 1971, though the issue of compensation to the Ukanis remains a matter of dispute in court.
Gawande alleged that Khadse took personal interest in convening a meeting of revenue, MIDC and land acquisition officials on April 12, 2016, and directed them to take a quick decision on whether to return the land to the Ukanis or give them a higher compensation under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transperancy in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. A fortnight later, the Ukanis executed the sale deed in favour of Khadse's wife and son-in-law.
(with inputs from Asseem Shaikh)
FILE: Eknath Khadse. TOI