Hooda Government twisted rules for Vadra's Gurgaon guesthouse?

Gurgaon, Oct 10: A day after the Election Commission said that granting DLF deal to Robert Vadra before elections was not a poll code violation, reports claim rules were overlooked by the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government to construct guesthouse on two plots of land in Gurgaon.

As per a TOI report the state government had stonewalled RTI pleas to uncover the details of a plot registered in the name of Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law. It now has possessed documents which show that not only was a single structure built on two plots of land (one owned by Vadra, the other by a private company), but also that an application for change of land use (CLU) from residential to commercial was being processed only after the building was completed, both of which are in gross violation of the law.

Robert Vadra and one of his companies, Lambodar Art Enterprises, owned two adjacent plots (Nos 29-30) in a private colony in Gurgaon. Both these plots were clubbed together to convert them into a guesthouse after Vadra's file pertaining to conversion of land use got the nod from CM Hooda's office.

Dharamvir Yadav, a resident of Gurgaon, filed an RTI application in 2013 which revealed that separate building plans for both plots in Mayfield Garden (N29 owned by Vadra, and N30 by Lambodar Art Enterprises) were approved in November 2010. But work on a single structure - the guesthouse - straddling both plots commenced in 2011.

Later, Satpal Thakran, another resident of the same colony, filed an RTI query in May this year seeking further details of the plots. But Thakran's querries were stonewalled by authorities who cited Vadra's request not to disclose details.

TOI is now in possession of correspondence between the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) and District Town Planner (DTP) over CLU permissions and occupation certificates, which show how rules were bent at every stage.

As per sources, the total size of the property owned by Vadra is about 9,000 square feet. But, Haryana government had in the past laid down some terms and conditions for conversion of land use, including a cap on the minimum and maximum plot size. The minimum plot size needed to apply for conversion was 1,000 square yards.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his poll rally in Haryana, had sarcastically described the validation of the deal as "a parting gift from the state's Congress government to the party's First Family".

OneIndia News