Khadse gets clean chit from ACB in Bhosari MIDC case
Pune – In a major relief for former BJP minister Eknath Khadse, Pune unit of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has filed a report in giving clean chit to Khadse in the Bhosari MIDC land case.
The controversy pertains to a three-acre plot in Bhosari. Even as the land was earmarked for MIDC’s use in 1968 and the state government had even published a gazette declaring the intention to acquire this land on November 11, 1971, records show that the plot’s original owner, one Abbas Ukani, had approached (then revenue minister) Eknath Khadse in March 2016, with a complaint that he had not been paid compensation for his plot. Even as powers in this regard wrest with the industries minister, records show Khadse, as the revenue minister, convened an official meeting involving officials from the MIDC and the revenue department, where the compensation to be given to the original owner under the Land Acquisition Act was discussed.
Khadse directed officials to expedite the compensation under the new land Act. Bolstering allegation of there being a conflict-of-interest in the matter, records show that Khadse’s wife Mandakini and son-in-law Girish Chaudhari purchased this land from Ukani on April 27, 2016 for Rs 3.75 crore. The land was valued at Rs 23 crore as per the 2016 ready reckoner rates, and the compensation under the new land Act for it would be to the tune of Rs 100 crore. Khadse has been contesting the argument that the land was in MIDC’s possession. During a judicial commission’s proceedings, he had also controversially claimed that he wasn’t aware until July 2016 that his wife and son-in-law had purchased the plot.
Following the High Court’s directives, the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau had filed an FIR against Khadse and three others in the land deal case. Activist Hemant Gawande is the complainant in the case.
