Desai denotified land despite officials' opposition: Panel

Mumbai: A committee comprising former ACS K.P. Bakshi, which was formed by the government to probe allegations of fraudulent denotification of land acquired by the industries department, found that industries minister Subhash Desai had denotified thousands of acres despite opposition from officials, but chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has not stayed those decisions yet. Calling for action in the matter immediately, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have demanded judicial probe.

In August 2017, Mr Fadnavis had appointed the committee under Mr Bakshi to probe allegations against Mr Desai after the Opposition alleged that denotification of industrial plots had been done on behalf of a builder.

Mr Fadnavis recently gave a clean chit to Mr Desai on the floor of the Legislative Assembly while narrating a few points of the report, which is yet to be released to the public.

The Bakshi committee found that 14,319 hectares of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corpor-ation (MIDC) land in Nashik were denotified or released by the industry minister from August 2002 to August 2017.

Out of which, during Mr Desai’s tenure (January 2015 to March 31, 2017), 12,429 hectares of land were denotified. Despite opposition by the industry secretary, Mr Desai allegedly released the land in 40 cases and his predecessor Narayan Rane released land in 55 cases.

Out of 160 cases of land release, 95 were not referred to the CM for directions — which is the procedure to be followed when a minister and secretaries differ, the Bakshi committee found. Now, Mr Fadnavis is thinking over the issue and the further course of action. But he has not granted stay in the de-notification of lands, sources have said.

Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil slammed the government, alleging that the decisions were taken to safeguard the interests of builders.  Sachin Sawant also demanded that CM stay the denotifiaction.