Nagpur, Jul 6: A day after ordering a judicial probe into the Navi Mumbai land deal case, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today announced a stay on all transactions related to that land.
Making a brief statement in the Legislative Council, Fadnavis said the land cannot be sold or leased out till the judicial inquiry is complete.
He also instructed the revenue department to ensure that no third party interest is created and no further transactions are done in this case till the inquiry is done.
The business of the Council, which began at noon, lasted only for seven minutes as it was adjourned soon afterwards.
Flooding in the switching centre that provides power to the Vidhan Bhavan forced the authorities to turn off the electricity supply for security reasons in the morning hours.
“A judicial inquiry has been ordered into the Koyna PAP land issue and sale and leasing of that land has been prohibited till the inquiry report comes,” Fadnavis said.
The chief minister had yesterday announced in the Assembly that he would order a judicial probe into land deal.
Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam had last Monday alleged that land in Navi Mumbai, meant for eight project affected people (PAP) of the Koyna dam and worth Rs 1,767 crore, was given to a private builder for just Rs 3.60 crore.
On the power supply woes in Vidhan Bhavan today, Maharshtra Energy Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said, “Since it was raining since last night, water entered the switching centre of Vidhan Bhavan. In order to remove water and avoid moisture in the switching room, power supply had to be turned off for some time.”
But it was restored within an hour, he added.
Leader of Opposition in the Council Dhananjay Munde, however, said the decision to hold monsoon session in Nagpur was taken in haste.
“The government should have taken prior steps to avoid such situation,” he said.
In response, Fadnavis assured that steps would in the coming days.
After this, Council chairman Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar adjourned the House till Monday.
Munde had earlier tweeted that this is the first time in the history of state legislature that the house proceedings had to be stopped due to power failure.
The government has failed in planning and this has happened due to the government’s childish insistence of holding the monsoon session in Nagpur, he tweeted.
Meanwhile, talking about Fadnavis’s announcement about the Navi Mumbai land deal, senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil told reporters that the government had to finally bow down before the truth.
“Our stand is vindicated. It shows there was truth in what we had alleged. If the stay wasn’t given, the government would have to face embarrassment during the judicial probe.”
“We will submit more proof in the Navi Mumbai land deal case on the floor of the House. Our MLAs were preparing to aggressively take on the government in this regard. Hence the government had to give in,” the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly said.
