Chargesheet in MP land deal silent on Vijayvargiyas role

State Industry Minister Kailash Vijayvargiyas name does not figure in a chargesheet filed on Monday in an Indore court in connection with a land deal worth Rs 100 crore,prompting the complainant to accuse the Lokayukta Police of shielding the senior BJP leader.

State Industry Minister Kailash Vijayvargiyas name does not figure in a chargesheet filed on Monday in an Indore court in connection with a land deal worth Rs 100 crore,prompting the complainant to accuse the Lokayukta Police of shielding the senior BJP leader.

Vijayvargiyas close confidant Ramesh Mendola and 13 others are named in the chargesheet,but former Congress minister Suresh Seth,whose private complaint brought on the investigation,moved an application to include the ministers name in the chargesheet.

Vijayvargiya was mayor of Indore 2003-04 while Mendola was a councillor when a three-acre prime plot adjoining Sugnidevi College in Pardeshipura was sold to a housing society headed by Mendola. The land had been given on lease to Dhanlaxmi Chemical Industries and could not have been sold even after changing land-use,Seths complaint in an anti-corruption court had alleged in April 2010. Mendola,now a BJP MLA from Indore,was a member of the mayor-in-council.

Seth told The Indian Express that the minister was the main accused in his complaint but the Lokayukta Police chose to give him a clean chit. Mendola was only a councillor then and his name has been included only to let the minister off the hook, the Congress veteran alleged.

The Special Court will take up his application for hearing on June 27.

SP Lokayukta Police Veerendra Kumar said no evidence had been found against the minister. According to him,prosecution sanction against six more persons was awaited. The 14 chargesheeted accused were released on bail of Rs one lakh each.