Chandigarh,November 18, 2009 : Labelling every bit of reply sent by Chandigarh Administrator S.F. Rodrigues as “bundle of lies and a selective deceitful concoction of imaginary facts and fictional excuses to justify fraud, corruption, robbery and plundering,” the groups of eminent citizens and affected families decided to urgently meet the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister to update him on the facts of the Chandigarh land scams and to request for immediate removal and arrest of S.F. Rodrigues along with the other bureaucrats involved in the scam. Group of citizens conducted a meeting here today to chalk out a plan of future course of action in light of the utterances by Rodrigues against the Home Ministry and his justifying the deals to negate the scams unearthed by the special audit team of Union Home Ministry.
The citizen groups also discussed para-by-para reply of Rodrigues and found that even the cunning reply sent and publicised by Rodrigues only addresses selective portions of the Home Minisrty audit report, and that too, out of context and without any rationale or logic. The so called 700 pages of report actually does not address any of the specific objections of the Home Ministry and more than 90 percent of the reply is nothing but annexure of old unconnected documents.
“We will personally meet the PM and the Home Ministry to discuss the issue further. Yesterday we have called up and also put a formal request to both, the office of the Prime Minister as well as the Home Minister for an urgent appointment. We are hopeful of an appointment within a couple of days,” Informed Sh. H. S. Johl, president of Manimajra Farmers Welfare and Environment Protection Society.
“Rodrigues has openly challenged the authority of Government of India and this proves what we have been saying all along that he has no faith in the Government and no respect for the Constitution or the law of the land. He has now accused the Home Ministry of getting the audit done wrongly and instead of accepting the serious irregularities, corruption and misuse of power; he is questioning the authority of the Home Ministry as if he is a dictator of king of Chandigarh operating outside the authority of Union of India.” H. S. Johl said.
Social activist Hemant Goswami said that it was absolutely illegal and unconstitutional for Rodrigues to continue occupying the office of Administrator as unlike the Governor there was no provision for extension of the term of Administrator without specific notification by the President of India.
“The five years of Rodrigues has been the ‘Darkest Period’ in the history of Chandigarh. For 55 years Chandigarh was the best city of India. Rodrigues changed it all and he has destroyed the modern city created by Le-Corbusier to fulfil the vision of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. He violated the entire urban and rural planning of Chandigarh and has pushed Chandigarh to the brink of ecological disaster and even urban catastrophe. Chandigarh will never be the same again, still we can stop him and his team of bureaucrats from more damages by preserving whatever is left of it.” Hemant added.
Colonel S.S. Sandhu mentioned “In his defence Rodrigues has stated that he has transferred land to big builders and property mafia to fulfil the UPA agenda and objectives of the Congress President and the Prime Minister. This is ludicrous as during his term he opposed sitting Ministers and MP’s of UPA including Pawan Bansal and Ambika Soni. Bansal has been elected for the fourth time from Chandigarh and if a political appointee refuses to listen to the UPA minister and an elected MP of the area, he actually worked against the UPA government objectives.”
M. P. Singh, an affected landowner stated, “Administrator Rodrigues started a personal war against the agitating land owners and farmers. He forcibly and unlawfully acquired their lands as vendetta and in total violation of the Chandigarh’s master plan transferred the land to his businessmen friends. The valuable land in the periphery, mostly of marginal farmers who were living in Chandigarh for generations has now been allotted to super-rich and multibillionaire companies at highly concessional rates. By throwing land owners out of their land he has made thousands of farmers landless and jobless. By spending all of the compensation ampunt he is offering (ranging from 8 lakhs to 15 lakhs an acre) a farmer who had five acres of land can not even buy 2 bedroom flat to be constructed on his own land as it costs nearly 60 lakhs.”
Adding to this, Hemant said, “It is surprising that in the reply to the Government he is mentioning the farmers and rightful owners of land (who have lawfully inherited it or purchase it) as “Fat Cats” and rich companies like Infosys, Parsavnath, DLF, Unitech, etc. as “Have Nots.” From his statement itself one can see that he has lost his balance of rational and logical thinking completely. He is trying to justify stealing of land from the lawful owners to big companies having surplus of hundreds of crores in the name of Public Good. This is height of irrationality and absolutely indefensible.”
“Case against the Administrator and the other bureaucrats who facilitated the fraud, corruption and plundering should be immediately registered. The Home Ministry and the CVC have already found that besides corruption there has been massive abuse of authority, major violations of laws, government rules and regulations. A lot of precious time has already been lost and if these people are not taken into custody immediately and interrogated they would manage to destroy all evidence and cover their footprints.” Nimma Suri of Manimajra Environment Protection Society added.
For more information, you can contact
Mr. H. S. Johl
President, Manimajra Farmers Welfare and Environment Protection Society
at (+91) 9815715128