Atishi Submits Report To Arvind Kejriwal Over Complaint Against Delhi Chief Secretary

Delhi Vigilance Minister Atishi has submitted a 670-page probe report to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleging "prima facie complicity" of Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar in a land acquisition matter and claiming it would have involved a windfall gain of Rs 897 crore for stakeholders, government sources said on Tuesday.

According to the report, the minister has recommended removal of Chief Secretary Kumar and Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar from their posts to pave the way for a fair probe.

No immediate reaction was available from the chief secretary on the latest development in the matter that has further fuelled the ongoing tussle between the Delhi government bureaucracy and the AAP dispensation.

In the report, Atishi said the chief minister may directly send it to the lieutenant governor and may make recommendations as well.

Kejriwal had forwarded last week a complaint received by him to the vigilance minister for inquiry.

It was alleged by the complainant - a lawyer - that the Delhi chief secretary's son worked in a realty firm, a director of which was the son-in-law of Subhash Chand Kathuria, one of the owners of the land acquired in Bamnoli village in southwest Delhi and who was awarded enhanced compensation for his land.

In his initial reaction on Friday, Naresh Kumar had said that the allegations against him were an attempt at "mud-slinging" by "disgruntled elements" who were facing vigilance enquiries.

The divisional commissioner said he cleared the position on the complaint against the chief secretary in his press conference on Monday.

Ashwini Kumar in the presser on Monday defended the chief secretary, saying the complaint against him in the land acquisition matter was part of "dirty politics" aimed at his character assassination since he was actively taking up cases of corruption.

He said the presser was held as a lot of "rumours and lies" were being spread against the chief secretary and the facts needed to be kept before the people.

He also said the matter came to light in May when the compensation for 19 acres of land to be acquired by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the Dwarka Expressway was hiked from Rs 41 crore to Rs 353 crore by the then district magistrate Hemant Kumar, who was later suspended and a CBI enquiry was initiated against him.

The report submitted by the vigilance minister, however, said, "The scale of the undue benefits is much larger than earlier made out to be in a vigilance report." "The windfall gain for the Kathurias (landowners) would have been Rs 897.1 crore for the 19.081 acres of land in Bamnoli village based on the illegal and exorbitant arbitration award given by erstwhile DM Southwest, Hemant Kumar. This is much greater than the estimate of Rs 353.79 crore shown in the vigilance report," the report stated.

The report further alleged that the "connections and the chronology" give the "prima facie appearance of complicity of the chief secretary with Hemant Kumar and the landowners." The vigilance inquiry into the excessive compensation hike by Hemant Kumar was not initiated suo motu by the chief secretary and the divisional commissioner. "It was done only after the matter was flagged by National Highways Authority (NHAI) that moved court in the matter on June 5 this year," claimed the report.

Sources in the Delhi bureaucracy, reacting to the whole matter, questioned "if the landowners had purchased the land in 2015 at just 7 per cent of the market rate, what was done by the chief minister and the ministers of revenue and vigilance departments and the officers concerned since 2015 till date? Whether any interests were involved." The matter was already under investigation by the CBI and the minister's report could be sent to the probe agency so that truth can come out, they said.

The CBI may also probe if there was any "conspiracy" to malign the image of the chief secretary by "vested interests including public authorities" against whom action was taken by him, the sources said.

The vigilance minister, in her report, has also recommended that a reference be made to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the likelihood of money laundering in the land purchase by its current owners in 2015 and subsequent "illegal compensation" awarded in 2023 for its acquisition.

Incidentally, the Delhi High Court recently set aside the award of Rs 353 crore for acquisition of land in Bamnoli that was declared by the then district magistrate (southwest) in May this year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)