SC asks refinery to pay Rs. 3.15 crore to Gujarat govt, Shaktisinh slams Anandiben Patel

New Delhi, 23 January 2014

The Supreme Court today called Gujarat minister Anandiben Patel’s decision to sell land to a private refinery in Gujarat “bad in law and arbitrary”.

The court said the company should pay Rs 3.15 crore to the government if it wants to proceed with the project.

Anandi Ben Patel, who is the state Revenue minister, cleared the sale of this 36 acre-land.

The land had originally been allotted by the Gujarat government to Indigold refinery. But the refinery could not set up its project within the three-year deadline and was allowed by the Revenue Minister to sell the land to Alumina Refinery in 2009, despite objections by the Chief Secretary.

Indigold sold the land to Alumina Refinery for Rs 1.20 crore.

Deepak Babaria, a Congress leader, challenged it in court, saying the government should have taken the land back and auctioned it, instead of allowing the sale from company to company.

Alumina Refinery had argued that it had spent huge money in setting up the plant .

Shaktisinh Gohil slams Anandiben Patel and Gujarat govt

Following is the statement issued by Congress spokesperson Shri Shaktisinh Gohil’s office in reaction to SC judgement

Supreme Court today set aside the order of Gujarat Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel to allocate land to Indigold. The Court in its judgment held the order illegal and ordered a compensation of Rs five crore. Gujarat Chief Minister and his ministers are indulging in corruption by giving prime land to industrialists at negligible price, this has been exposed by today’s Supreme Court order.

In this case, land was initially given to Indigold, but the company could not use it within the stipulated period. Instead of taking possession of the land from Indigold, Gujarat Chief Minister agreed to a proposal of Indigold to allow it to sell the land. Chief Minister who has made vibrant Gujarat even a major platform for his corrupt manipulations, forwarded this application to his confidant and number two minister Anandiben Patel to give permission to Indigold to sell the land to Allumina. Officers of the Revenue Department and the Chief Secretary noted on the file that the land belonged to the government and Indigo had no right to sell it. Government should take possession of the land. However, there was a deal of crores of rupees and Revenue Minister Anandiben, overriding all objections, wrote on the file that as a special case Indigold was allowed to sell the two lakh Sq Mt of the land to Allumina. Shaktisinh Gohil who was Leader of Opposition at that time had obtained all this information through RTI and exposed the deal in public through media. This was, however, stoutly denied by spokesministers of Modi government who had claimed that Congress was spreading lie. Gohil had further asked the spokespersons and Revenue Minister Anandiben to have public debate with him in Gandhi Ashram on 26-4-2011at 2 pm. Though Gohil reached there, none from the government turned up at Gandhi Ashrama. With the Supreme Court order there is victory of truth and corruption in Gujarat is exposed.

The Public Interest Litigation(PIL) was today approved by a bench of SC of Justice Shri H L Gokhale and Justice Shri Chelameswar. The honourable Court has declared the minister’s decision as illegal and has also ordered deposit Rs. Five crore compensation.

Since many years Gujarat has been ahead in development and the past governments of the state have worked to maintain public property. But the present Chief Minister of the state in the last 10 years has given away public property worth crores of rupees to his favourites without any transparency or competitive bid. In the name of Vibrant Gujarat Modi has set up biggest platform for corruption. Industrialists are given away the land which they want and large scale corruption is done. The Supreme Court order is an example of this.

Gohil said that it was a matter of pleasure that Congress’ fight against corruption and the judgment of SC has saved crores of rupees of Gujarat’s treasury. After SC order BJP should immediately remove Anandiben from her post. BJP’s PM candidate Modi who always accuses Congress has ministers who are corrupt and have criminal background in his cabinet.

The PIL was filed by Deepakbhai and others and advocate on record in SC who appeared were Anirudhbhai and senior advocate Hujefa Ahmadi.