Chandigarh:
Haryana cadre IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who was transferred from his office of DG land consolidation and holdings three days after he started an inquiry into land dealings involving Robert Vadra, met Haryana's Chief Secretary PK Chaudhary today. Mr Khemka said after the meeting that he was "satisfied" with the reasons given for his transfer.
But he also said that if his decision to cancel a Rs 58 crore land deal between Mr Vadra, who is Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law, and real estate giant DLF was thought to be incorrect by the Haryana government, then they should go to court.
Mr Khemka hit the headlines when he was transferred after cancelling, on a technicality, the land deal between Mr Vadra and DLF. Mr Vadra, DLF and the Haryana government have been accused of illicit land deals by activist-politician Arvind Kejriwal and his outfit India Against Corruption. He also raised questions about why the government appeared to have bent the rules for Mr Vadra, processing his documents at lightning speed and licensing him to build a commercial housing project on his plot of 3.5 acres.
Mr Khmeka had also asked officials to inquire into all land deals in the state linked to Mr Vadra, on the basis of IAC's allegations and media reports.
The Haryana government disputed both of these as well as linking Mr Khemka's transfer to the inquiry into Mr Vadra's deals. It said that Mr Khemka's decision to invalidate the land deal was on an incorrect basis. More importantly, the government also said that Mr Khemka started the inquiry after he was served the transfer notice. This was refuted by Mr Khemka. It now emerges, according to documents available with NDTV, that Mr Khemka is right: He had started the inquiry three days before he was served his transfer notice, on October 11.
The government said that Mr Khemka was transferred on October 11 and that the next day (on October 12) he wrote a letter to senior officials in four districts of Haryana, asking them to determine "the real value" of Mr Vadra's transactions. By stressing this, the government has implied that Mr Khemka ordered the inquiry to make it seem like he had been punished for trying to expose a land scam involving a powerful personality. But documents accessed by NDTV -file notings - show that Mr Khemka in fact initiated the inquiry against Mr Vadra on October 8 - and that three days later, he was served his transfer orders.
The government has challenged Mr Khemka's decision to cancel the deal and has said that it defied "the principles of natural justice" because he did not allow either Mr Vadra or DLF to explain their version of events. It has set up a committee to study the deal and given it a one-month deadline to share its findings. The government has blamed Mr Khemka for misrepresenting the facts to make it seem like he was transferred because he ordered an investigation into all the land bought and sold by businessman Robert Vadra in the state since 2005. (
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"Secrecy is required only in cases where sovereignty and the defence of the country is involved or relations with foreign countries and the issue of license and the issue of exercise of the discretion should be carried out in open, very openly. There's no reason for maintaining secrecy in award of licensees or discretionary plot allotments," Mr Khemka told NDTV. (
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