Court orders Rajiv Gandhi Trust to return land in Amethi to UP govt: Were Smriti Irani's allegations true?

In a dramatic development, a revenue court in Amethi on Wednesday (26 June) ordered the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust to return 65 acres of land, that it had bought in an auction from a private company, since the land belonged to the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC). On Sunday, 23 August, Union Minister for Human Resources Development Smriti Irani during her Amethi visit had questioned the sale of the land to the Rajiv Gandhi Trust and had accused the Gandhi family of “land-grabbing.” According to local reports, the sub-divisional magistrate of Gauriganj, Vandita Srivastava, ordered that the land sold by auction to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust by Samrat Bicycles, should be returned to UPSIDC. She said that the land in Kauhar village already belonged to UPSIDC which was illegally transferred in the name of the Trust. In 1983, 65 acres of land belonging to farmers was acquired in Kauhar village and given to Samrat Bicycles on a 90-year lease to set up a manufacturing plant. However, the company did not start any work and eventually closed down. In order to repay the loan, that it had raised from various financial institutions, it auctioned the land allotted by UPSIDC. It has also been alleged that the company had produced fake records to claim that it owned the land. [caption id=“attachment_2409898” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “] Union HRD minister Smriti Irani. PTI[/caption] Uma Shanker Pandey, a lawyer who represented farmers, said the UPSIDC regional manager had written to Amethi district magistrate saying the land was given on lease to Samrat Bicycles, and hence the auction process should be cancelled so that the land was returned to UPSIDC. On the basis of this, the district magistrate lodged a complaint in the SDM court for “correction of paper”. In the order issued on Wednesday in the case now known as ‘UPSIDC versus Samrat Bicycles’, it has been directed that the allotment of land in the name of the company should be cancelled and it should be returned to UPSIDC. The case, when raised by Irani, had elicited a quick and harsh response from the Congress. Party spokesmen in Lucknow and Delhi had described her allegations as “wild and baseless.” On Tuesday, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh had told the media during a programme in Lucknow that Irani was a “liar” who could not be trusted. Party MP from Amethi Rahul Gandhi told the media during a visit to Jammu that the Trust was doing very good work for years, having empowered large number of women in the area. Therefore, he quipped, Smriti Irani “should go into the details of what work they have done and exactly what they are doing before she says anything,” he said. During her Amethi visit on 18 August- five days after Rahul Gandhi’s visit on 18 August - Irani had claimed that 65 acres of farmers’ land, which was acquired in the 80s for setting up the bicycle factory was sold to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust on February 24 this year. “Did the factory come up, did anyone get jobs, what happened to the land?” She had also ridiculed Rahul Gandhi’s claim that his party “will not let anyone take an inch of farmers’ land. Perhaps he means that he wants to take the land for himself.” Irani had lost narrowly to Rahul in the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Amethi but has been visiting Amethi quite frequently. In June, she had visited Amethi a few days after Rahul’s visit. At that time she had paid the first premium of the insurance scheme Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Beema Yojana (PMSBY) for thousands of local people, besides having provided a rake of urea fertilizer as demanded by local farmers. This month, Rahul Gandhi had visited Amethi for two days on August 18 and 19. During this visit he had met local farmers, addressed wayside meetings and attacked Modi government on various issues. Irani landed in Amethi four days later, and launched an attack on Rahul and the Congress with the land-grab allegation. Reacting to the Amethi court order, BJP leader Harish Chandra Srivastava said in a statement that the matter must be probed as to how land belonging to the UPSIDC was transferred to Samrat Cycles on ownership basis. “It must also be probed if it was part of a conspiracy to illegitimately transfer industrial land to the Rajiv Gandhi Trust,” he alleged. He also claimed that the case had “exposed” the hollow claims of the Congress regarding development in Amethi.