By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: About a week after the Supreme Court issued notice to Bihar Government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the Forbesganj police firing case, the Patna High Court on Tuesday ordered Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA), a Bihar government body, to reply to allegations of irregularities in land allotments to kins of politicians and bureaucrats.
A division bench of Patna High Court comprising Justices T Meena Kumari and Vikas Jain directed BIADA to file its reply by January 2012. The bench was hearing PILs that alleged irregularities in land allotment and sought a CBI probe. The PILs were filed by former RJD MLA Satish Paswan, former Samata Party leader P K Sinha and social activist Sarwar Khan Warsi in July 2011.
Under construction glucose factory by Auro Sundram International Private Limited at Bhajanpur village of Forbesganj
According to reports, the PILs had alleged irregularities in the allotment of land by BIADA to the kins of influential politicians and bureaucrats by changing the rules in 2007. The petitioners had alleged the plots were allotted without publishing advertisements and inviting tenders.
The issue had hit the Nitish government when it was exposed by media that several industrial plots were given to family members of some members of Nitish cabinet and some MLAs. The beneficiaries included family members of Bihar HRD Minister PK Shahi and Social Welfare Minister Parveen Amanullah.
Among the plots given by BIADA to politicians were the two plots of Bhajanpur in Forbesganj. The plots of 35 acres were given to Auro Sundaram International Pvt Ltd whose one of the directors is the son of BJP MLC Ashok Agarwal. The upcoming factory had blocked the decades-old road of the Bhajanpur village and when the villagers came out to protest on June 3, 2011 the local police had opened fire on them killing four including an infant and a pregnant woman and wounding many others.
The state government has rejected CBI probe in both the Bhajanpur firing and BIADA land scam. The government has not yet given any compensation to the firing victims holding it until the submission of the report of the judicial enquiry which it ordered.
The state cabinet had announced to set up judicial commission on 7th June 2011 to enquire into the firing and asked it to submit report in six months. However, the state government notified the constitution of the commission on 22nd June – the day National Minority Commission chief Wajahat Habibullah was visiting the Bhajanpur to enquire into the firing.
The one-member commission headed by retired justice Madhvendra Sharan visited Bhajanpur of Forbesganj on 30th July 2011. He spent about one hour in the village and asked the victim families to send their grievances in affidavit form to the commission office in Patna. The address of the office will be published in a notification in local newspapers. The commission told the villagers that the notification will be published within a week of its visit but even 80 days after the visit the notification has not yet published.
The commission was given six months to submit the report. Five months will be completed in 10 days from now. But, according to informed people, the state government has not yet allotted an office to the commission, the main reason of the delay in publication of the notification.
The whole story puts a question mark before the sincerity of Nitish Kumar for justice to marginalized people, particularly minorities.