Digvijay Singh breaks silence to defend CJ

“Let’s watch and see what happens,” says Brijesh’s elder son Pradeep Singh. He has only the faintest memory of his bua Mala Anand and has never seen Justice Anand.

Not a whiff of the controversy generated by former law minister Ram Jethmalani has reached the inhabitants of Pipraudh and Maholi villages situated on the bank of river Ore, 25 kms from Chanderi — a small town famous for its hand-woven saris.

The government-run Pipraudh Farm appears deserted. Most of its equipment such as tractors and irrigation pumps have been auctioned. “There has been no sowing since 1999 Rabi,” says Madan, who lives in the abandoned farm complex.

“The court has ordered the government to give the plaintiff alternative land or financial compensation in lieu of the Pithrod Farm land and we have sent a proposal to them,” is all the Collector of Guna is prepared to say.

While the bureaucracy is mostly taciturn, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has defended his government’s decision to withdraw the SLP.

Singh today issued a statement in Delhi owning that the decision to withdraw the appeals was “a conscious decision taken in the interests of the Government.”

“I feel it my duty to emphatically deny that the Chief Justice of India or anyone else has at any time or in any manner influenced the decision of the Government of Madhya Pradesh or interfered with the defence of the suits by the Government,” he said.

He found Jethmalani’s “insinuations” against the CJI “distressing and painful” and said that he had himself sought fresh legal advice before deciding to withdraw the SLP in the apex court.

The Chief Minister’s statement recounted that the land in question had been allotted to Mala Anand’s ancestors by the erstwhile Government of Madhya Bharat in the early ’50s. But the state government took over possession of the land under Section 176 of the MP Land Revenue Code of 1959.

Mala Anand and her mother Sushila Singh filed a suit for recovery of the land in a Chanderi court in 1993 and won. The court, however, accepted the plea of MP Seeds Corporation that it be allowed to retain the Pipraudh Farm land it had developed after 1983 at great expense and the government was asked to give the plaintiff’s alternative land or equivalent financial compensation.

The state government and the MP seeds Corporation lost the subsequent first appeal in the court of the Additional District Judge (Mungawali) and the second appeal in the High Court. The decree in favour of Mala Anand and her mother were sent to the government for execution after it withdrew the SLP in 1998.

“In spite of the opinion of the law department to the contrary, the advocate-on-record in Delhi was asked to file an appeal on behalf of the government,” says Singh. “When these facts were brought to my notice, I once again obtained the opinion of the law department, another additional secretary and the Principal secretary (Law).”

According to the CM, the appeal before the Supreme Court had unfortunately already been filed “bypassing and ignoring the categorical opinion of the Law Department and three different law officers.” He, therefore, decided to order its withdrawal. Singh denies suggestions that the Government was less than enthusiastic in contesting the case against the relatives of the Chief Justice.

Meanwhile, the farm bears an abandoned look. Till recently, the Pipraudh Farm was one of the best processing centres of the state and fed the entire district. Its equipment was auctioned in June this year and the farm buildings are now practically abandoned. “Our manager Yogendra Tripathi has been transferred to the Gwalior processing centre and no one is in charge of the farm at present,” says Madan, an old farm hand who now runs a small teashop on the serpentine road from Ashok Nagar to Chanderi.