Faced with serious charges of land grabbing and corruption against three senior leaders, the Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption (IAC) said it had set up a panel of retired high court judges to look into the charges against Prashant Bhushan, Mayank Gandhi and Anjali Damania. The panel will give its report in three months.
The members would have to leave IAC if the charges were proved right, Kejriwal said today. The enquiry panel, comprising former Delhi High Court judge A P Shah, B H Marlapalle of the Bombay High Court, and Jaspal Singh of the Delhi High Court, will function as the internal Lokpal of Kejriwal’s new political party.
Bhushan has been accused of land grabbing in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. The charge is that he used his influence to get permission from the state government to buy land in Palampur for an educational trust.
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Bhushan recently said he had bought the land with good intent and it was not for any profit making. “We spent Rs 5 crore for that land, which used to be an unused tea plantation,” he said.
According to Kejriwal, whenever IAC picks up a corruption issue, it is questioned about Bhushan's property in Palampur. “So, we decided to get an independent inquiry done, since the government is not ordering one. We have asked the government several times to order any of its agencies to probe any charges against us,” said Kejriwal.
Damania, whose RTI applications have been instrumental in exposing the irrigation scam in Maharashtra and who came up with charges against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari, has been accused of asking the irrigation department to acquire tribal land to save her own farm house.
She had replied last week, saying she had suggested the irrigation department acquire land from tribals but also suggested paying them sufficient compensation, which was in the form of land in their case. “So, what wrong did I do?” she asked.
Similarly, Gandhi has been accused of misusing his NGO, Remaking of Mumbai, to help his uncle Lalit Gandhi’s Lok Group bag land deals. The Lok Group is accused of selling a part of the land it got from the Mumbai corporation under a redevelopment scheme. Gandhi has denied these as baseless charges, while welcoming the inquiry. “I will leave if found guilty,” he said.
Asked whether these members should not resign while the probe is on, Kejriwal said if the ombudsmen (judges’ panel) desired so, they would resign.
He also asked members of the public to send all evidence they had against the IAC members.
Kejriwal also denied today that he had suppressed any information on Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. We had posted online all the evidence we had on Pawar in May itself and had fasted for his resignation for 10 days. “What more could we do?” he asked.
“Day before yesterday, our target was Nitin Gadkari and so we stuck to that.
The way Shiv Sena and Pawar were defending Gadkari, it proved out point that all parties are in it together.It is no longer possible to make out who is in the UPA and who is in the NDA,” he said.
Kejriwal said that the question whether businessmen can be politicians is a case of conflict of interest, and has to be examined by all concerned. He said the worst part was when successful businessmen were made members of parliamentary committees, where they can influence policies related to their area of work. “That is certainly not desirable,” he said.
Asked whether he would be exposing any more politician this month, Kejriwal answered in the negative and added: “We are very responsible and we are collecting evidence before we say something on anyone.”
