Ahmedabad

Gujarat High Court today gave clean chit to Chief Secretary DJ Pandian in Charnka Solar park land acquisition case and freed him from blame. The High Court observed that there was no loss to public exchequer in purchase of land.

In December last year Gujarat government had submitted a report before the Gujarat High Court giving a “clean chit” to its Chief Secretary D J Pandian in an alleged land purchase scam. Advocate General Kamal Trivedi placed the report of the state’s Revenue department before the division bench. After going through the probe report, the High Court division bench said Gujarat government had given a “clean chit” to the Chief Secretary.

On August 27 last year, the Gujarat High Court had directed a probe against the Chief Secretary for his role in allegedly paying excess compensation to acquire land for a solar park.

“The investigation report shall indicate whether in addition to any irregularities in payment of compensation and pilferage of public funds, there is any element of involvement of any officers or individuals in commission of offence punishable under law,” the High Court order had said.

Pandian was Managing Director (MD) of state-run Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL) in 2011 when the land was purchased and was promoted as chief secretary in October last year.

A local Congress leader Farsu Goklani had filed the PIL in 2012 alleging a small group of people had purchased a large chunk of land in Charanka in Patan district just before issuance of a notification in 2011 that a solar park would be established near Charanka village. Later, GPCL purchased 918 hectares of land from those people within a year by paying them upto Rs 51 lakh though the last sale price of the same plot was merely Rs 1 lakh, the PIL alleged. The chunk of land was purchased by private owners between January 2010 and February 2011 while it was sold to Gujarat government in October 2011, the PIL said.