Mumbai: The Maharashtra government is facing one of its most embarrassing moments. The former NCP Finance Minister Jayant Patil, on Wednesday, turned the spotlight on alleged corruption involving Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil. Jayant has accused Chandrakant of having misused his powers as a minister, thereby causing a loss of hundreds of crores of rupees to the exchequer. His allegations were so serious, that Chandrakant rushed to the press room to debunk the charges. Jayant raised the issue of two land transfers which Chandrakant had approved in Pune between 2018 and 2019.
The first case is related to a temple trust in Kesanand village of Haveli tehsil in Pune district. This temple land was proclaimed as a private land by Chandrakant, which is totally illegal, Jayant has alleged. It was also illegally transferred without any "nazrana" (premium fee) being levied. This 42-acre land was actually gifted by the then Bombay Governor to Mhatoba Devasthan on November 28, 1861. The Devasthan land was handed over to Radhaswami Satsang, which made an application to the district collector seeking to regularise the transfer deal and turn the land into non-agricultural. The revenue commissioner rejected the plea for non-payment of the nazrana.
"However, when an appeal was made to the minister, he announced the land was ‘private’ and used his quasi-judicial powers to clear the transaction without recovering the nazrana," Jayant has charged. This caused a loss of at least Rs 42 crore to the exchequer. In the second case, the NCP leader has accused the minister of favouring Shivpriya Realtors LLP to grab a land reserved for a playground at Balewadi in Pune city. “A builder, Umesh Kothwadekar Wani, was developing a housing project worth Rs 300 crore, on survey no.17 land in Balewadi. Shivpriya Realtors connived with the deputy land survey and measurement officer, Smita Goud, to get the approval for this project and showed 6 gunthas of the neighbouring playground as part of his project.
With the forged map prepared by Goud, the land parcel became 42 gunthas and the project was approved. When construction started, locals through the Bharatiya Janata Party corporator Amol Balwadkar, opposed the grabbing of a portion of the playground on survey no.17. Local BJP legislator Medha Kulkarni, in a letter, also opposed this transfer. After this, the district land survey and measurement officer, Rajendra Dhule, sought an explana-tion from Goud. She admitted having committed a mistake, by showing part of the playground as a part of Shivpriya Realtor project. Based on this, Dhule ordered action against her. But the builder approached Chandrakant, who in turn, helped the builder by approving the project in December 2018,” charged Jayant.
