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| Farooq says he owes it all to BR, Jaitley et al | | For Ansari’s sake, NC Govt to reopen Sidhra Land Scam’s can of worms | |
AHMED ALI FAYYAZ
SRINAGAR, May 9: President of the ruling National Conference (NC) and former Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, today revealed that senior PDP leader and his two-time ministerial colleague, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, would soon face court trial in the infamous Sidhra Land Scandal of 1997. He said that the NC-Congress coalition government would also investigate how Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-led coalition government had written off Sales Tax arrears worth Rs 27 Cr outstanding against Ansari’s firm in exchange for his defection from the NC and a bank’s role in liquidating Ansari’s loan arrears would also come under scanner.
In Take One Television’s bi-weekly current affairs programme “Face to Face With Ahmed Ali Fayyaz”, Dr Abdullah disclosed that the government would soon produce Challan in the infamous Sidhra Land Scandal in a court of law. He revealed that the key accused, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, had been found guilty and he would face the trial.
Responding to a question as to how his alter ego of 1987-2005, Ansari had broken away from the NC and joined then ruling PDP in 2005, Dr Abdullah said that the senior politician-businessman had put on him heavy pressure and made continued attempts to get his ST liability worth Rs 26 Cr to Rs 27 Cr written off.
“We told him plainly that he would have to pay (the ST outstanding) like all others did. We told him that he could not be entitled to any amnesty other than the one granted to all others. He wanted us to write off the amount which we refused to do but PDP did after his shifting to that party. After the elections will be over, we will investigate how PDP did write off his liabilities. We will also probe how the bank liquidated his loan outstanding; was there a special concession”, Dr Abdullah said.
When it was pointed out to him that Ansari had been publicly blaming his bureaucracy, particularly then CM’s Principal Secretary B R Singh and then Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitly, for engineering his dismissal as Minister in 1999 and subsequently his exit from the NC in 2005, Dr Abdullah asserted that his bureaucrats had, in fact, saved him from falling in a big trap.
“My bureaucrats were never wrong. God was kind that they gave me the right advice or else I would have landed in jail on Maulvi Ansari’s plan. What he had done, I can’t reveal but a day will come and I will tell you all. Had I acted on his proposal, Farooq Abdullah would have been in Central Jail today”, Dr Abdullah said. “People would have raised their fingers and said that Farooq Abdullah is a thief”, he added and declined to be specific about the details. Was he referring to Sidhra Land Scam? “Yes, the same one. But I would not like to talk more on this as it will soon go to the court. Doodh ka doodh, pani ka pani sab ki samajh mein ayega”.
Even as Dr Abdullah did not yield to intense grilling on the subject, Early Times learned from its top level sources in Omar Abdullah’s government that Crime Branch had been lately directed to produce its Challan in a court of law as it had since completed investigation in the Sidhra Land Scam. Sources revealed that weeks before his government came down due to withdrawal of support from PDP in July 2008, then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had submitted the Sidhra investigation to Governor Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha and sought sanction to Ansari’s prosecution. Governor is understood to have accorded the sanction in July last year and thereafter the matter has been pending before the government.
Then Minister of Housing & Urban Development in Dr Abdullah’s Cabinet, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari had been removed from the Council of Ministers in December 1999 on account of his alleged involvement in the matter of releasing a bank guarantee worth Rs 4.75 Cr against “kickbacks” of Rs 60.25 Lakh from M/S Alchemy Enterprises---a bogus firm floated by some directors of New Delhi-based M/S Infrastructure Projects Private Ltd (IPPL).
In 1997, IPPL had proposed a project for development of a satellite township at Sidhra in Jammu and engaged Jammu Development Authority (JDA) in the matter of raising a loan of Rs 150 Cr against a bank guarantee of J&K Bank Ltd from ICICI Bank. In a meeting of the JDA Board of Directors, which was presided over by then Housing & Urban Development Minister Mr Ansari on 19th July, 1997, it was decided to acquire the loan of Rs 150 Cr and an allegedly deficient bank guarantee was also approved. The meeting was, among others, attended by then Chairman of J&K Bank, Mohammad Yousuf Khan, and then Principal Secretary H&UD, S L Sailova.
After some JDA insiders leaked the transaction to the government, Crime Branch in Jammu registered a criminal matter of fraud against several officials. Then IG Crime & Railways, J&K, Mr R V Raju, was appointed as the Inquiry head who sought permission for custodial interrogation of Maulvi Iftikhar Ansari and proprietors of New Delhi-based Classic Inc, who happened to be the Minister’s family members. As Raju held Ansari and others guilty of fraud and recommended their prosecution, then Chief Minister Dr Abdullah went for a Cabinet reshuffle in which Ansari was dropped in December 1999.
In his statement, one of the IPPL directors, Jayant Bhutta, had deposed before Raju that he had himself paid kickbacks of Rs 60.25 Lakh to Mr Ansari for seeking clandestine release of the bank guarantee of Rs 4.75 Cr without raising even the initial installment of the loan from ICICI bank. One of the bank’s Bangalore-based General Managers was also quizzed by Raju.
However, Dr Abdullah’s government later constituted a one-man commission of inquiry, comprising former judge of J&K High Court, Mr Justice K K Gupta, which submitted its report in 2002. The report tabled on the floor of J&K Legislative Assembly on March 7th, 2002, however, gave a clean chit to Ansari, Khan and Sailova. It observed that they had not been found involved in any financial matter. It had held then Vice Chairman of JDA, R K Handa, guilty of a “procedural lapse” but that too was condoned in the report. Ansari had maintained in all of his statements before the inquiry and commission that he had not received nay kickbacks. He had asserted that nobody on Earth did receive bribes by cheque.
A decade later, Ansari is now fighting Lok Sabha election as PDP candidate against NC’s Dr Farooq Abdullah from the Central Kashmir constituency of Srinagar-Budgam for which polling was held on May 7th.
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