Congress chief ministers part of Goa land scam: Parrikar
By IANSWednesday, December 1, 2010
PANAJI - Two former Goa chief ministers are involved in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) land allotment scam worth Rs.100 crore, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Parrikar said Wednesday.
The Leader of Opposition accused Pratapsing Rane (now speaker of the Goa legislative assembly) and Luizinho Faleiro (now a senior All India Congress Committee functionary) of colluding with several bureaucrats to allot land to some favoured SEZ promoters.
“Rane, as chief minister in 2006, had exhibited gross impropriety in directing the managing director of the GIDC (Goa Industrial Development Corporation) to issue land to the SEZ promoters,” Parrikar said.
Parrikar also claimed to have documents along with file notings by Rane, Luizinho and other officials to back his claims.
The BJP’s campaign against the SEZ land allotment received a shot in the arm last week after the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court set aside the allotments made by the state government to seven SEZ promoters.
In a stinging order, the court said that the government acted in “in undue haste without proper scrutiny of their applications”.
When asked if Rane and Luizinho would be summoned by the assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by Parrikar himself, the BJP leader said: “It is within my powers as chairman of the committee to summon anyone having knowledge of the matter to give their statements.”
The SEZ promoters in question are Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd, Cipla group, Peninsular Pharma Research Ltd, Paradigm Logistic & Distributors, Planetview Mercantile Pvt Ltd, Inox Mercentile Pvt Ltd and M/s Maxgrow.
Parrikar earlier said the PAC will summon the SEZ promoters.
The state government was forced to de-notify the allotment of 32 sq mts land to the SEZ promoters in face of stiff civil society protests a couple of years back. The SEZ promoters had then approached the Bombay High court challenging the government’s denotification decision, before the court set aside their application Nov
