Firm linked to RTI activist's murder has Pawar shareholding

By Abhay Vaidya

Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar ought to be adequately embarrassed about IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd - a prominent Mumbai-based firm in which he and his wife Pratibha have investments of 1,000 shares each. This shareholding has been disclosed by Pawar in his assets declaration statement that is available on the prime minister’s website.

IRB Infrastructure, which has had a meteoric rise in the highway construction and toll roads business across the country in barely 13 years, made sensational news last week in connection with the murder of Talegaon-Dabhade-based Right to Information (RTI) activist Satish Shetty (38) on 13 January 2010.

On 3 May, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) secured judicial permission to conduct a polygraph test on 10 persons, including IRB’s Chairman and MD, Virendra Mhaiskar, in connection with investigations into Shetty’s murder. Those who will also undergo the lie-detection test include IRB officials Deepak Gadgil (head of real estate) and Jayant Dangare (head of liaisoning) among a total of 13 persons.

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In a prompt communiqu to BSE and NSE, IRB on 3 May said that although the late Satish Shetty’s brother had named various persons, including Virendra Mhaiskar, as suspects, the Maharashtra police department had conducted a thorough inquiry in the matter and given a clean chit to Mhaiskar. The clarification said that Shetty’s brother was not happy with the investigation conducted by the police department and upon his petition, the state government handed over the investigation to the CBI.

During the course of the investigation, the CBI had, along with several other persons, asked Mhaiskar and two other company officials to undergo a polygraph test. “Mr Mhaiskar and the company officials have readily agreed to undergo the polygraph test since they are confident of their non-involvement in the matter,” the clarification stated.

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While the permission to CBI to conduct the lie-detection test on Mhaiskar was reported extensively by the mainstream media, what was not reported was Pawar’s association with this firm. To be fair to the NCP president, Pawar has voluntarily disclosed his and his wife’s shareholding in IRB Infrastructure while being among the first cabinet ministers in the Manmohan Singh government to declare his assets.

The details of Pawar’s declared assets of Rs 12 crore as of 31.3.2011 can be viewed here:

For quite some time now, Pawar’s association with IRB has generated considerable gossip as, for example, this 27 March investment tip by “Fitte Muh” on Moneycontrol.com: “A super stock from the Sharad Pawar Kingdom! It will shine in the coming months and years. Buy for cool targets of 300 in medium term. The best infra stock in India!!”

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Shetty (38) was assaulted with swords and murdered on 13 January 2010 at around 7.15 am when he had returned from his morning walk. At the time of his death, the RTI activist was intensely involved in exposing a major land scam in the area around the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. He had informed the police that he was receiving threats and that his life was in danger.

Although the rural police had arrested five persons in connection with the murder, his brother Sandip insisted that the role of powerful persons behind Shetty’s murder was not being probed by the police. He had specifically named the IRB chairman as a suspect. In April 2010, a high court bench ordered the Pune rural police to hand over the case to the CBI.

In February 2011, Bombay High Court judge JH Bhatia had pulled up the CBI for not probing the alleged role of influential suspects accused by Shetty’s brother Sandip of complicity in the case. “Even the CBI did not touch upon the issue, for reasons best known to them, may be because all those parties appear to be very powerful financially and even otherwise,” Justice Bhatia observed. Sandip had named Mhaiskar in the FIR and in an affidavit before the high court which accused the local police of shielding powerful people involved in the case.

During 2009, Shetty had unearthed a major land scam in the Maval taluka of Pune district in the vicinity of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and had accused IRB Infrastructure and its subsidiaries, including Aryan Infrastructure Investment Pvt Ltd, of grabbing large tracts of government and private lands in Taje and Pimploli villages by forging documents and manipulating land records. IRB has categorically rejected these allegations.

IRB, which has large land holdings in this area, had stated in its IPO prospectus of 28 September 2007 that it was planning a massive integrated township in Mauje Taje and Mauje Pimploli through its real estate subsidiary Aryan Infrastructure Investment Pvt ltd with collective land reserves of 751 acres and plans to acquire an additional 649 acres.

IRB has seen a meteoric rise in just a decade since inception as DVJ Leasing and Finance Pvt Ltd in 1998. Having constructed more than 2,000 km of highways, it now ranks among India’s leading infrastructure companies in the road construction and toll roads sector with projects across the country. These include the four-laning of NH-4 (Mumbai-Pune section), the Thane-Ghodbunder Toll Road BOT project, the Rs 2,800 crore 240 km six-lane Surat-Dahisar project and the National Highways Authority of India’s 115 km Tumkur-Chitradurga project, among others.