Manmohan's adviser in BEML land allotment controversy

One of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s top advisers is at the epicentre of a controversy over irregular allotment of Bangalore plots to his niece and family friend by the public sector defence undertaking BEML, according to media reports. The allotments, which violated stipulation restricting them to company employees, were made in December 2008 at prices far below the prevailing market prices to a niece and a family friend of TKA Nair, a 1963 batch IAS officer who was at that time the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary and who remains his adviser with Minister of State rank, according to reports in The Hindu and The Times of India. [caption id=“attachment_281380” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“BEML MD V Natarajan. Screen grab from CNN-IBN”]  [/caption] Curiously, the allotments were made at a time when the Prime Minister’s Office, among other agencies, was looking into a complaint (which was first made in 2005) against BEML chairman and managing director VRS Natarajan in the Tatra truck deal, which is at the heart of the recent sensational allegation by Army chief Gen VK Singh that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe. That allegation is currently being investigated by the CBI. (More details here ). This means that in effect, Nair’s niece and a family friend benefited from irregular land allotments – at throwaway prices – from the BEML cooperative society of employees about the same time that the PMO, where Nair was serving as Principal Secretary, was looking into allegations of corruption in the Tatra truck deal. The Hindu reports, citing documents in its possession, that the plots were allotted by the BEML Employees Cooperative Society to Nair’s niece A. Preethy Prabha and family friend Umadevi Nambiar. It added that a third plot had been allotted to another woman who, according to people familiar with the matter, was also related to Nair; but since the newspaper could not secure independent verification of her relationship to Nair, it did not disclose her identity. But after a former employee of BEML wrote to the Prime Minister in August 2010 to complain about the allotments, at least two of the allottees – Preethy Prabha and Umadevi Nambiar - returned the plot to the society in December 2010, without proffering any explanations. Nevertheless the fact that such irregular allotments were made to the close associates and relatives of a top PMO official when his office was looking into complaints of corruption against BEML points to a serious conflict of interest. KS Periyaswamy, the former BEML employee who wrote to the Prime Minister to complain of the allotments, claimed that the allotments were made under pressure from Natarajan – and “to secure the PMO’s silence on the Tatra scam,” The Hindu report noted. In all three cases, the sale deed bore the signature (as a witness) of a senior official in Natarajan’s office. Natarajan himself was allotted plots in violation of norms, the newspaper noted. He was allotted two plots, when in fact he was only entitled to one; additionally, corner plots, such as the one he was allotted, were to have been auctioned in the open market, but an exception was made for him. The three irregular allotments are cited (as part of the out-of-turn allotment of 63 sites) in a case that BEML employees have filed before the Karnataka High Court, the Times of India reported. Read The Hindu reports  here and here and The Times of India report here