Navin Chawla (right) with CEC Gopalaswami

BJP nets EC Navin Chawla in Rajasthan land scam

Land worth Rs 15 cr given for Rs 32 lakh

Lokpal Sethi | Rajasthan | 9 February 2009 |

Election Commissioner Navin Chawla and his wife Rupika are known to be close to the Gandhi family. Under fire from Chief Election Commissioner Gopalaswami for having acted “on his bias towards the Congress,” Chawla’s name is once again in the news for having sought land at throwaway prices from the Congress government in Rajasthan to set up two trusts. Nine years on there are still no signs of any activity by the trusts.

Way back in January 2000, the then Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot happened to be in Delhi. Navin Chawla, the controversial Election Commissioner, sought an appointment with him. At that time he was serving as principal secretary, port and power, with the Pondicherry government. Knowing his proximity to the Gandhi family, Gehlot was more than willing to meet him.

Chawla told the chief minister that he wanted a piece of land in Jaipur to start educational activities by two trusts headed by him. These two trusts were in the name of his mother and father. He handed over to him two separate request letters for the allotment of land.

Soon after returning to the state capital, Gehlot sent these two letters to the social welfare department with the instructions that it should recommend to the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) to find suitable land near Jaipur and allot it to the trusts.

Normally this department takes months, if not years, to consider such requests, but this request was cleared just in one day. On its part the JDA located a piece of government land to be allotted to the trusts, Lala Chaman Lal Educational Trust for Boys and Bhagwani Devi Trust for Girls.

It allotted a piece land measuring 22,054 square meters at just Rs 100 per square meters, which was one tenth of the government reserve price of the land in the area. The market value of the land at that time was around Rs 15 crores, whereas the trust paid only Rs 32 Lakhs for this prime piece of land in the Bambala industrial area, which is close to Sanganer airport near the state capital.

Interestingly, the allotment of the land was done in February 2000, when these two trusts were not even registered, which is a pre-condition for getting government land.

Under the provisions of the allotment of government land to charitable trusts, such trusts have to be registered under the trust act. But these two trusts were registered in April 2000 and that to under the society act. Under the rules, such trusts should be at least three year old and have to submit a balance sheet for this period along with the application for getting the government land at a concession.

But none of these regulations were followed. Further, on the request of Chawla, the JDA spent Rs 7 Lakhs to put up a fence around the land to protect it from possible encroachment.

These details are revealed in 32 documents, mostly copies of the original correspondence, which a petitioner has enclosed with his petition, filed in a lower court in Jaipur last week seeking an inquiry under section 200 and 2004 of CrPC. The court, while directing to record the statement of the petitioner Yogender Singh Tanwar, has fixed February 9 as the next date for hearing. Tanwar is the state head of the legal cell of BJP. His consular, Kailash Bhat is a spokesman of the party.

According to the petitioner, Chawla way back in 2000 sought suitable land from the JDA in the name two trusts – Lala Chaman Lal Educational Trust for Boys and Bhagwani Devi Education Trust for Girls – to run educational institutions. At that time Chwla was principal secretary, ports and power, with the Pondicherry government.

On the orders of the government, the JDA alloted 22055 meters of land near Sanganer Airport. The land was allotted at the government price of Rs1000 per square meter. The trusts were asked to deposit Rs 2.75 crores to get possession of the land.

But instead of depositing the money, Chawla wrote a letter to the government requesting to reduce the price to Rs100 per square meter. The then Housing Urban Development Minister Shanti Dhariwal immediately agreed to his request and accordingly the JDA put Rs 32 lakh as the price of this prime land, market value of which that time was not less than Rs15 crores, according to the petition.

After getting the land on April 22, 2003, Chawla wrote a letter to then JDA commissioner Dinesh Goyal, requesting him to put a fence around the land to protect it from any kind of encroachment. At that time Chawla was secretary of the UPSC.

According to the documents enclosed with the petition, Chawla wrote both the letters on his official letter head as principal secretary of Pondi-cherry government and as secretary of UPSC.

The petitioner has made Rupika Chawla, wife of Navin Chawla and his daughter Rukmani Chawla, who are general secretary and treasurer of these trusts, also parties in his complaint.

Talking to CURRENT, Bhat said even after nine years the trusts have not started any kind of educational activity which was to be started immediately after getting the land. The trusts have put up a small structure on the land but there is hardly any activity, he said.