Ahmedabad

A special court today issued process in the alleged fisheries scam of Rs 450 crore involving Gujarat minister Purushottam Solanki and former minister Dilip Sanghani.

Issuing process by a court means the particular case is triable and the court has taken cognisance of the case. In this case, the court has considered an investigation report submitted by ACB and then issued process against the six accused.

Special Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) court judge of Gandhinagar, Rizwana Ghoghari, issued process against all the six accused, including Solanki, Sanghani along with one former secretary in the alleged fisheries scam and posted the hearing of the case on September 19.

Others, accused in the case are Arun Sutariya, former Fisheries Secretary, Victor Kharadi, former Deputy Secretary in Fisheries department, Kamlesh Tabiyar, former Under Secretary and Chandrika Shah, a former section officer of Fisheries Department.

The case dates back to the year 2008 when Solanki was Minister of State for Fisheries and Sanghani was the cabinet minister. They had allegedly alloted fishing contracts in more than 58 dams in the state without following procedure of tender.

Solanki is at present Minister of State for Animal Husbandry in the state’s BJP government led by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.

At that time, a Palanpur-based businessman Ishaq Maradia knocked the doors of the Gujarat High Court and alleged that Solanki had flouted rules by allotting contracts without following tendering process.

Maradia had alleged that Solanki, Minister of State for Fisheries in 2008, was involved in the scam by illegally granting contracts for fishing in 58 reservoirs across the state.

Maradia, after initial refusal of Gujarat government to grant sanction to prosecute Solanki, had also moved the High Court in 2012, which in turn had directed the state government to decide the matter at the state cabinet level.

During the hearing of the case in the high court, it was stated by Solanki that the contracts of fisheries were granted by Sanghani as he was then designated as the cabinet minister.

The then state cabinet under the leadership of former Chief Minister Narendra Modi had refused to grant sanctions to prosecute Solanki.

However, the then Gujarat Governor Kamla Beniwal had on July 30, 2012 had sanctioned the prosecution of Solanki under Prevention of Corruption Act, overruling the state cabinet.

After that, Maradia had filed an application in the ACB court demanding criminal prosecution of Solanki and Sanghani under Prevention of Corruption Act.

After a case under Prevention of Corruption Act was lodged against Solanki and Sanghani, the Gandhinagar court had asked ACB to conduct an inquiry during May 2013 and asked the officials to submit a report.

A report in this regard was submitted before the ACB court in June last year which had indicated irregularities while awarding the contracts of fisheries.

PTI