Ahmedabad Mirror: Ahmedabad: Sunday, February 21, 2016.
The issue of
allegedly alloting land near Gir lion sanctuary in Amreli to CM Anandiben
Patel's daughter Anar's alleged business partners at a concessional rate has
landed at Gujarat High Court. Gir-Somnath district based RTI Activists
Sangathan (RAS), an association of RTI activists, filed the Public Interest
Litigation (PIL), seeking high court intervention in the matter. The plea is
likely to come up for hearing on Wednesday. The PIL has named Wildwood Resorts
and Realities Private Limited, Chief Secretary, Secretary of revenue
department, Principal Conservator of Forests, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat
Limited, District Collector, Mamlatdar and circle officer of the Amreli
district.
RAS president
Razak Baloch told Mirror, "Our organisation had taken up the issue before
the government about the wrongly carried out allotment of land to Wildwood
Resorts but when it yielded no result, we filed a PIL, which is likely to come
up for hearing on Wednesday." The state-level body, that got registered
three years ago, has taken up several corruption-related issues in the past.
While its registered office is in Gir-Somnath, it also has an office in
Gandhinagar. He said, "There are norms in place for allotting government
land and according to a government notification of 1997, it cannot allot land
without conducting public auction. There also are norms barring commercial
activities in protected wildlife areas."
The PIL
sought high court intervention, raising issue of the conflict of interest as
the 250-acre land was given to Wildwood Resorts, a company owned by alleged
business partners of Anar Patel at an official rate of Rs 15 per square metre
against the rate of Rs 180 per square meter. The land is in Gujarat's Amreli
district, next to the lion sanctuary at Gir, making it an attractive commercial
proposition. The PIL with bulky sets of the documents has alleged that the
forest, revenue and tourism departments have wrongly allocated the land by
giving concessions to the company in violation of the norms. Wildwood Resorts
is owned by Dakshesh Shah and Amol Shripal Sheth, alleged business partners of
Anar Patel. However, Anar Patel earlier dismissed the allegations in a post put
up on her Facebook wall. Shah and Sheth also denied the allegations and said
they did nothing wrong. Nimish Kapadia, lawyer for RAS, however, refused to
divulge the details saying the matter was sub judice.
I'LL OPPOSE:
BJP MLA
Nalin Kotadiya, BJP MLA from Dhari
constituency, has come out openly against the CM. He said the state government
had approved Rs 10 crore for a bridge in a village with a population of 200
people. "This is just not done. The bridges and roads in this area are
developed to make a grand way to the proposed site of Wildwood in Khamala
village," he said. Kotadiya will raise the question on the development
projects near Khambha in the upcoming assembly session. He alleged that while
farmers are not allowed to even dig a borewell because of the sanctuary,
Wildwoods is being allowed to go ahead with construction work.
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