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Journalism of Courage
After revelations by former Pune Police Commissioner Meeran Borwankar in her just-released book about her foiling a private player’s takeover of prime police land in Pune’s Yerawada, followed by a contradictory standpoint from former Divisional Commissioner Dilip Band, The Indian Express put together a timeline of events. These stretch from 1979 to 2011 — that is from the time the land was given to the Pune Police till when it was auctioned to a private party to it being finally restored to the police. The chronology of events includes a complex paper trail that points to a series of meetings and measures that transpired over many years involving officials, politicians and private developers.
January 20, 1979: The story begins on January 20, 1979, when the then District Collector of Pune allotted the land bearing Survey Number 191-A/2A/1 of area 1.214 hectares, which is around 3 acres, to the Pune Police on the specific conditions that the land be used for construction of police station and police residential quarters. On February 14 same year, the possession of land was given to Pune Police by the Revenue Department’s Circle Inspector for Yerawada. A week later, a Mutation Entry, also known as Ferfar Nond, was done, which resulted in preparation of 7/12 land extract in the name of police department. The piece of land is located next to the current building of the Yerawada police station and a city traffic police division office.
March 31, 2007: The sequence then jumps to 28 years later to March 31, 2007 when a private trust from Pune, which The Indian Express has learnt was not a registered entity, submitted a land exchange proposal to then Home Minister of Maharashtra R R Patil. The trust, which is known to have owned land next to this police land and wanted to take it over for continuity, proposed that their another piece of land be given to the police in exchange where they would also construct police stations and officer bungalows as also police quarters.
February 21, 2008: Little less than 11 months later, on February 21 in 2008, a Government Resolution announced the formation of a committee that was tasked to submit proposals on how police lands in Pune and surrounding areas could be utilised for police offices and residences. The committee was to be headed by the Divisional Commissioner and the members would comprise of the District Collector, the Police Commissioner and PMC Commissioner, among others.
October 13, 2008: Meanwhile, in a separate development on October 13 in 2008, Maharashtra’s Director General (DG) of Police wrote to then Pune Police Commissioner seeking proposals for development of the 3-acre Yerawada land by the Police Housing Committee. However, more than a month later, the Home Department, through its senior officer, showed displeasure over the DG letter and cancelled the DG’s order and directed that the construction on the police land be done by a private player. On January 16 in 2009, then Home Minister R R Patil held a meeting of senior officials and ordered that the construction on police land be done by private player in Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) model. In March 2009, a company was appointed as project management consultant for the BOT project.
July 4, 2009: On July 4, 2009 in a meeting at the Divisional Commissioner’s office in Pune, Home Department officials ordered that a tender be issued seeking bids from private developers to execute the exchange of other land for the police land and also carry out construction of the police station and police quarters.
July 18, 2009: On the tender was published. On August 28 in 2009, the Home Ministry wrote to the Pune Police Commissioner that a private company — with alleged links to the private trust that initially submitted the exchange proposal to the Home Minister in 2007 — had been given the sanction for the development of the land. Sources have told The Indian Express that the auction process for the same had taken place during this window between July 2 and August 28 of 2009.
October 2009: The story took a sudden twist when in October 2009, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named one of the promoters of this private company as an accused in a major scam and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also booked him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the same matter in March 2010.
August 6, 2010: In spite of this development, the development agreement with the said private company was registered on August 6, 2010 at the Sub Registrar Office of Land records in Pune.
September 6, 2010: Subsequently on September 6 in 2010, the private company wrote to the Pune Police Commissioner, the charge then held by Borwankar, seeking permission for construction of the police quarters in Shivajinagar as part of the land exchange deal worked out earlier.
September 29, 2010: Borwankar rejected the permission.
A retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of 1981 batch, Borwankar had taken over as Pune Police Commissioner in July 2010 and held the post till June 2012. She has said in her book ‘Madam Commissioner: The Extraordinary Life of an Indian Police Chief’ that as soon as she took over, the issue of the police land being auctioned came up and she was summoned by the then ‘district minister’ and asked to hand over the land to the private player who had won the bid. She says in the book that she ‘gently but with finality’ communicated to the then ‘district minister’ that it was not possible for her to hand over a 3-acre land in Yerawada owned by the Pune Police to a private player. She later told this newspaper that the district minister was Ajit Pawar. Pawar, on his part, has denied any role in the auctioning of the land or for pushing for it to be handed over, after these allegations came to light last Sunday.
February 8, 2011: In February 8 in 2011the company promoter accused in the scam was arrested by the CBI and was chargesheeted in April 2011. In another turn in the case, the company moved the Bombay High Court in July 2011 and filed a writ petition seeking directions to the Pune Police Commissioner to not interfere with the development rights. Pune Police filed their say in the matter.
August 9, 2011: The Bombay High Court ruled on the petition on August 9 in 2011 ordering that the government should decide on the Pune Police’s stand and, if the decision of the government is adverse to the petitioner’s plea, it should be communicated to them.
August 30, 2011: In yet another turning point, on August 30 in 2011, the ED attached the land owned by the private company where it was going to construct police station and police quarters in exchange for the Yerawada land. It was this development that turned the tide in the story and in favour of the Pune Police.
September 13, 2011: On September 13 in 2011, Home Minister R R Patil held a meeting at Mantralaya and details of the CBI and ED probe against the company promoter were sought.
September 16, 2011: The details were submitted.
September 17, 2011: On September 17, the development agreement with the company was cancelled by the Home Minister and decision was communicated to the private company five days later.
Meanwhile, around 2018, the company promoter was acquitted from the CBI and ED case, among several other accused. The two agencies have filed appeals against these acquittals.
The 3-acre land currently remains in the possession of Pune Police. Officials have said that as of now there is no immediate plan of development on it.
