Ex-Gujarat BJP chief minister disputes "clean chit" on scams under Modi, cites BM Shah panel report as proof

By A Representative
Former BJP chief minister Suresh Mehta has said that the Gujarat government’s assertion about “clean chit” to it by the MB Shah Commission of Inquiry into 17 corruption cases has “no basis”, as the top panel, in its report says, it would “concur” with the conclusions arrived at, among others, by Supreme Court and Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on them.
Citing three instances from the voluminous 5,500 page report, tabled in the Gujarat state assembly on March 31, Mehta, flanked by senior office bearers of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), told newspersons, “In each of them, the Shah Commission refuses to give clean chit, saying it leaves the matter to high authorities for judging them.”
The Commission was set up in 2011 by the then chief minister Narendra Modi to probe into allegations of corruption by the Congress against his government, which include wrongful allotment of land to the industrialists. Alleging Rs 1 lakh crore worth of scams in the 17 cases, Congress made a representation on these to the Gujarat governor and the President of India in 2011.
The first case cited by Mehta, who was BJP chief minister in 1995-96, is of Indigold Refinery Ltd, which he said was allocated 36.25 acres of land in Kutch district for just Rs 70 lakh, even though the state revenue department officials had ruled against it. “The chief minister’s office (CMO) and revenue minister Anandiben Patel overruled the decision and ensured allocation”, he said.
“A writ petition filed in the Supreme Court against the land allocation ruled a scam worth Rs 250 crore in allocation of the land, which cost Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 per square yard”, said Mehta. “Following this, in 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that the decision to sell 36.25 acre of land to it in 2009 was bad in law, indicting the CMO and minister Patel, and set it aside.”
The second instance Mehta cited is that of the Rs 6,000 crore Sujalam Sufalam project, floated to construct a 337-km-long high-level recharge canal in North Gujarat, pointing out that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Gujarat state assembly, consisting of 15 MLAs, 10 of BJP and rest of Congress, had found a scam worth Rs 500 crore.
“At least two official committees, set by the Modi government, one under VS Gadhvi and another under Manjula Subramaniam, found basis on the PAC allegation. While the PAC report, lying with the Gujarat assembly speaker for the last 10 years, has not been made public, the MB Shah Commission could have examined the two other committees”, asserted Mehta.
The third instance cited by Mehta is of the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC), whose “failed” KG Basin operation to explore oil and gas off Andhra Pradesh coast, as also expansion offshore to different countries, said CAG, cost the top state public sector undertaking a whopping Rs 19,716.27 crore worth of loan.
“It is shocking that the media has been given just a few pages of what the Gujarat government thinks about the Shah Commission report, while 5,500 page report, running into several volumes, was submitted to the state assembly library, with no permission to photocopy it”, said Mehta, who did not reveal how he obtained it.
“The Commission was set up in 2011 by the legal interest with its terms of reference saying it was in public interest to know whether there were any scams”, said Mehta, adding, “Though the interim report was submitted to the Gujarat government in 2012, and the final report was submitted a year later, it has now been placed in the assembly, but no copies are available.”

Comments

Dalit woman student’s death sparks allegations of institutional neglect in Himachal college

By A Representative A Dalit rights organisation has alleged severe caste- and gender-based institutional violence leading to the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman student at Government Degree College, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, and has demanded arrests, resignations, and an independent inquiry into the case.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

Celebrating 125 yr old legacy of healthcare work of missionaries

Vilas Shende, director, Mure Memorial Hospital By Moin Qazi* Central India has been one of the most fertile belts for several unique experiments undertaken by missionaries in the field of education and healthcare. The result is a network of several well-known schools, colleges and hospitals that have woven themselves into the social landscape of the region. They have also become a byword for quality and affordable services delivered to all sections of the society. These institutions are characterised by committed and compassionate staff driven by the selfless pursuit of improving the well-being of society. This is the reason why the region has nursed and nurtured so many eminent people who occupy high positions in varied fields across the country as well as beyond. One of the fruits of this legacy is a more than century old iconic hospital that nestles in the heart of Nagpur city. Named as Mure Memorial Hospital after a British warrior who lost his life in a war while defending his cou...

The architect of Congolese liberation: The life and legacy of Patrice Lumumba

By Harsh Thakor* Patrice Émery Lumumba remains a central figure in the history of African decolonization, serving as the first Prime Minister of the independent Republic of the Congo. Born on July 2, 1925, Lumumba emerged as a radical anti-colonial leader who sought to unify a nation fractured by decades of Belgian rule. His tenure, however, lasted less than seven months before his dismissal and subsequent assassination on January 17, 1961.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Search This Blog