After the controversy erupted, Ajit Pawar had argued that his son and his partners were not aware that the Mundhwa land belonged to the government. (File photo)
Amadea Enterprises—the firm owned by Ajit Pawar’s son Parth—has still not applied to get the Rs 300 crore Mundhwa land deal scrapped despite the Deputy Chief Minister himself announcing the cancellation of the deal on November 7.
”They have still not cancelled the deal. They had had approached the sub-registrar to see the possibility of cancelling the deal on a Rs 500 stamp paper but the sub-registrar told them that is not possible,” Santosh Hingane, Joint District Registrar and Collector of Stamp, told The Indian Express on Tuesday. Hingane said after reaching out the first time, Amadea Enterprises has still not approached the sub-registrar to cancel the deal.
Hingane said the firm had sought 15 days to put forth their explaination. ”Yesterday (Monday), they sought 15 days to explain theit stand on the notice regarding the payment of Rs 21 crore stamp duty for executing the deal. We told them to either pay it or submit their view. We have told them we will hold a hearing on December 4…,” he said. On Monday, Amadea Enterprises gave a list of 10 laywers to the IGR’s office. ”But we will hear out only one of them,” he said.
Hingane said, ”Our demand is that they first have to pay Rs 21 crore on the signed deal. And if they cancel the deal, they will have to pay an additional Rs 21 crore.”
After the controversy erupted, Ajit Pawar had argued that his son and his partners were not aware that the Mundhwa land belonged to the government. He announced the cancellation of the deal and said a committee appointed by the state government will probe the Rs 300 crore land deal and submit its report within a month. ”The land belonged to the government. It cannot be sold. Parth and his partner was not aware of this. The probe will bring out the facts,” he had said.
Officials said while the hearing on the issue of payment of Rs 21 crore stamp duty will take place, Amadea will have to pay one per cent of the fine on the unpaid stamp duty. ”The amount comes to Rs 21 lakh per month. This means, so far the fine has gone up to over Rs 1 crore,” said officials. As for the cancellation of the deal, officials said there is no deadline as such. ”We will take a call after the hearing,” said officials.
A committee headed by Joint Inspector General of Rajendra Muthe, which had recently submitted its report to the IGR, has not indicted Parth Pawar. The committee said no probe was conducted against him and only the evasion of stamp duty was probed.
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Activist Vijay Kumbhar said, ”The entire deal is in a uncertain zone. Parth Pawar and his firm will not only have to pay Rs 21 crore for the unpaid stamp duty but they will also have to pay additional Rs 21 crore for getting the deal cancelled. I think they are seeking time to find some way out or some loopholes in the law.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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