Allege Haryana showed haste in leasing out land,case to come up for hearing today Villagers of Ulhawas in a petition to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday have accused the Haryana government of showing unholy haste in releasing around 5 acres in Gurgaon to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust. The petition will come up for hearing on Thursday. The villagers,15 of whom have signed the petition,have made the trust and gram panchayat of Ulhawas village as respondents in the case and alleged that on the dayAugust 21,2009Haryana government decided to dissolve the Assembly,the cabinet issued orders leasing out the land to the trust. The villagers accused the state government of showing unholy haste to oblige their masters by dolling out prime land to a top political family. The petition also alleged that the chief minister of Haryana,who was also holding the charge of development and panchayat ministry,approved the proposal to lease the land to the trust and further added the urban estate department be advised to exclude the land from acquisition. The petition alleged that the sole motive of the state authorities was to please the trust,which is an influential body,and in this process the public interest of the villagers has been seriously prejudiced and jeopardised. Even the lease price is not at all commensurate to the value of the land or the price it would have fetched. The Cabinet accorded approval for leasing of the land at Rs 3 lakh per acre per annum and as everything was stage managed,on the same date,the financial commissioner and principal secretarydevelopment and panchayat departmentissued orders for leasing the land for a period of 33 years to the trust. Incidentally,this decision was taken in the same Cabinet meeting whereby the decision to dissolve the Haryana Assembly and to hold fresh elections was also taken by the Cabinet. The hurry in according the approval is thus obvious. Alleging that the Haryana government tweaked all rules and guidelines to release the land to the trust and ultimately made it the owner,the villagers have demanded that the orders of December 6,2010 whereby panchayat land was released to the trust be set aside. Also,the villagers have demanded that the orders whereby around 9 kanals of vacant land has been released to one Church Gate Medical Society,Delhi should be quashed. They also wanted that during the pendency of the petition,the trust and the Church Gate Medical Society may be ordered to maintain status quo over the land. All Petitions Withdrawn A day after main petitioner and artist Anjolie Ela Menon withdrew her petition,the remaining petitions challenging the land acquisition made for development of residential Sectors 58 to 63 in Gurgaon were also withdrawn on Wednesday. Arvind Kaweta and two others,who had raised the issue of alleged illegal release of land to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust,withdrew their petition agreeing to appear before the high-powered committee for reconsideration. The landowners will appear before the high-powered committee in September. However,the court has allowed the landowners to approach the high court again if they remain dissatisfied with the decision of the high-powered committee. Originally,there were 70 petition filed in the Gurgaon land row.
