Congress rejects CAG report, says allegations of undue favours to Vadra based on half truth
New Delhi, March 26: A day after CAG report said that Hooda Government in Haryana granted ‘undue favours' to Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, Congress on Thursday dismissed the allegations.
The Congress said that ‘there is no such finding of wrongdoing'.
Instead of proceeding to hold the previous Congress Government in Haryana guilty based on half truth, innuendos and insinuations, we must examine the facts," party spokesman Randeep Surjewala said.
Surjewala said the Accountant General of Haryana has neither indicted the previous Congress government nor Robert Vadra or Skylight Hospitality Private Limited for any violation of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975 or any rules or policy.
"There is no such finding of wrongdoing as is being sought to be alleged," he said.
In its report for the year 2013-14, tabled in the Haryana Assembly on Wednesday, the CAG has come down heavily on the Town and Country Planning Department.
"....the department neither at the time of granting in-principle approval nor at the time of formal approval for transfer of licenses ensured that net profit beyond 15 per cent of the total cost accrues to public exchequer.
"This enabled the developers to earn huge profits merely by selling the land while the government had to forego sizeable amount," the CAG report said.
Surjewala said the deposit of profit beyond 15 percent applies only to completed projects and not to ongoing projects, which are permitted to be "sold/transferred in accordance with the Haryana Act of 1975".
"As Skylight Hospitality Private Limited had sold/transferred its licence for 2.7 acres of land without completing the project, this condition did not apply at all. Hence, no law, rule or policy was violated by Government of Haryana," he said.
Surjewala, who was a minister in the erstwhile Congress government of Haryana, claimed that since the inception of Haryana and the enactment of the Act of 1975, the state government has not received a "single rupee" in revenue towards 15 percent profit clause in last 40 years.
Surjewala claimed that as per his information, the principal accountant general of Haryana have sought clarifications on some issues by issuing due notices to the BJP government of Haryana.
"For
apparent
politically
motivated
reasons,
they
chose
not
to
reply
or
bring
on
record
the
aforesaid
incontrovertible
facts
and
statutory
provisions
leading
to
finalisation
of
interim
preliminary
objections
of
PAG,
Haryana,"
he
said.
The
CAG
report
prepared
in
2013
doesn't
name
Vadra
but
says
his
company,
Skylight
Hospitality,
sold
3.5
acres
of
land
in
Gurgaon
near
Delhi
to
realty
giant
DLF
for
58
crores
in
2008.
OneIndia
News
(With
agency
inputs)