The Delhi High Court on Wednesday passed an interim order in connection with the alleged 16,000-acre land scam case at the Kandla Port Trust (KPT) that the present rates of leases given to a handful salt companies are paltry. Unhappy with affidavit filed by the KPT,a bench comprising Justice Murlidhar ordered it to furnish all the lease details,including that of the salt companies. The KPT had filed an affidavit in response to a case filed by the Centre of Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) alleging a multi-crore land scam where nearly 16,000 acres were leased out to some influential local companies for nearly four decades,without following any tender process. For the same,the KPT and Centre have been incurring loss in several crores per annum. The High Court in its order noted that current rates,around Rs 141 per acre per annum,are paltry, said advocate Pranav Sachdeva,who is representing senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan of CPIL. Following a Delhi High Court interim order on October 14,the KPT had filed an affidavit on November 6. In its affidavit,the KPT said leases have been given to 41 companies and no tender procedure was followed. Besides,the KPT affidavit also stated that these contracts were renewed twice in 1996 and 2002,to the same companies,without inviting any fresh tenders. The KPT has also said that market evaluation of the land has never been done. In 2007,the then Chief Vigilance Officer of at KPT,Manoranjan Kumar,had alleged that the Central government trust has been incurring losses in several crore as these leases have given at paltry rates to some handful of families. The officer,along with other three officials,was made to proceed on long leave by the Shipping Ministry and kept without post and pay for three months. It was following an order from the Central Administration Tribunal that the Shipping Ministry had to pay compensation and give the CVO post back.
