Panaji, Nov 29 (IANS) A top legislative committee will probe whether seven special economic zone (SEZ) promoters, including pharma major Cipla, paid bribes to government officials for illegal allotment of government lands, Goa’s Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar said Monday.
Parrikar, who is also chairman of the assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said current speaker and then chief minister Pratapsing Rane, then industries minister Luizinho Faleiro and several other politicians and officials could be the architects of a Rs.100 crore scam.
The scam involved SEZ land allotment to the tune of 32 lakh sq metres spread in seven pockets spread across the state, he added.
‘Of course, the promoters will be probed. They could have given bribes to officials (for illegal allotment of land),’ Parrikar said at a press conference. He added that anyone connected with the alleged scam could be summoned and asked to depose before the PAC under oath.
The BJP’s statement comes a few days after the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court set aside the allotments made by the state government to the seven SEZ promoters ‘in undue haste without proper scrutiny of their applications’.
The SEZ promoters in question are Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd, Cipla group, Peninsular Pharma Research Ltd, Paradigm Logistic & Distributors, Planetview Mercantile Pvt Ltd, Inox Mercentile Pvt Ltd and M/s Maxgrow.
‘We have always said that the office of the chief minister, industries minister and officials of the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC, the state government agency which was the dealing hand in allotting land to SEZ promoters) could be involved in the scam,’ Parrikar said, adding that the BJP would file a criminal complaint against individuals involved in the scam once the PAC completed its report in March next year.
The state government was forced to denotify the allotment of 32 lakh sq metres of land to the SEZ promoters in the face of stiff civil society protests a couple of years back. The SEZ promoters then approached the Bombay High court challenging the government’s denotification decision, before the court quashed and set aside their application Friday (Nov 26).
