Now,estate officer says land ‘disputed’

Going back on her claim,Defence Estate Officer (DEO) Geeta Kashyap on Wednesday told the judicial panel probing the Adarsh scam that the land on which the high rise stands is ‘disputed’. On Tuesday,Kashyap said the land belongs to the Maharashtra government. She made this claim while clarifying on why no objection was taken by the Ministry of Defence when the Maharashtra state issued a notification transferring the plot reserved for the BEST undertaking to Adarsh.

On being questioned by special counsel Dipan Merchant on Wednesday,Kashyap said,“Although there is no record of the Adarsh land in the Military Land Records,there is an affidavit filed by K B Nayyar,under secretary of Government of India before the Bombay High Court,stating that the right to own and occupy Adarsh land was created in favour of Defence Ministry by the state government. This statement was made on the basis of a December 1958 letter written by the union government to Maharashtra government.” Kashyap also told the commission,“I am not aware as to when the possession of the land was obtained by the state government from the Army. The handing over of the land is not entered in the defence estate records as it is a disputed land.” On being asked whether the reason for not having any records regarding the transfer was because the land was not owned by the MoD,Kashyap said this was ‘not correct’.

Merchant also raised questions about an endorsement of 2000 in a letter of December 16,1981 issued by the Superintendent,Bombay City Survey and Land which was given to Major (retd.) SK Lamba of the Mumbai Citizen’s Group under the Right to Information Act,2005. However,this endorsement was not there in the original record.

Kashyap said that the office of the DEO did not have any land-audit report for the land and she had inspected the land twice during her tenure as DEO. “We did not enter the premises. We took no measurement,” she said. Meanwhile,the panel has extended the time given to former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to file his affidavit in the case till June 9.