PAG,CAG nails Haryana lies on land to Rajiv Gandhi Trust,DLF pays over Rs 400 crores less for land

Coming to the land allotted to Rajiv Gandhi Trust which is headed by UPA Chairperson,Ms Sonia Gandhi,Nath said that “In this case Section 4 and 5 of Land Acquisition Act had already been invoked for acquisition of land and for seeking objections before acquiring this land belonging to Panchayat. Section 6 too had been invoked for giving compensation to land owners. It was at this stage that rules were changed in less than a month’s period and undue favour given to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust that had made an application for allotment of land”. He said that the CAG report was placed in state Assembly on March 11 and now it will be sent to Public Accounts Committee for necessary action.

Though the Haryana Government has been defending allotment of land to the Trust,but its own Haryana Land Release Policy,2007,says that the State Government can release land from the acquisition process for exceptionally justifiable reasons only. During 2007 to 2012 out of 15,331 acres of land notified for acquisition,2,476 acres was released to land owners.

The Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust issue relates to a notification to acquire 166 acres of land in Ullahwas village of Gurgaon district. This chunk of land was being acquired for developing residential and commercial sectors at Gurgaon. In this case,the said Trust asked the Panchayat to lease it five acres for opening an eye hospital. The state government approved the proposal of the Panchayat to lease the land following which the Trust applied to the town and country planning department for change of land use (CLU) in October 2010 after issuance of notification under section 6. The Trust was asked to get the land released before applying for CLU In November 2010,the government then hurriedly amended rules to make Trust eligible for applying for a CLU. Within three days from December 1 to 3,2010 the proposal for grant of CLU to the Trust was accepted.

Nath said that “clearly Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust was not eligible but was favoured by the Government”. The CAG report says that The Town and Country Planning Department granted CLU for establishing an eye hospital by the Trust in violation of its development plan and the government had released the land in contravention of its land release policy. The report says that “in the process of acquisition of land,various provisions of Land acquisition Act,1894 were not adhred to”.