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Goa Lokayukta indicts former CM, 2 others
The Lokayukta said the officials “have abused their official position thereby causing loss to the entire State of Goa and benefitting only a few mining lease holders.”
The Goa Lokayukta has indicted former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar and two officials for renewing mining leases, including 31 in a single day in 2015, which the Supreme Court later cancelled in 2018. It has asked Goa’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to file a case against Parsekar and the two officials--P K Sain and Prasanna Acharya--for alleged corruption and recommended a further probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Sain is a former mines secretary and Acharya ex-director of mines. Parsekar headed a Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in the state from 2014 to 2017
“Appropriate FIR [First Information Report] should be registered by the ACB... However, further investigation shall be made in accordance with law by an independent agency... the state government is directed to entrust [the] investigation to the CBI,” said the order, which was made public on Tuesday. The Lokayukta has asked the two officials to demit office .
The Lokayukta said the officials “have abused their official position thereby causing loss to the entire State of Goa and benefitting only a few mining lease holders.”
Between January 5, 2015, and January 12, 2015, the Goa government renewed 56 mining leases, including 31 on January 12, 2015, the day the Mines and Minerals Development Ordinance came into effect. The Ordinance made it mandatory for granting the leases through auction.
The Lokayukta said the hurry in renewing the leases was to avoid the process of auction. “Only an ostrich with its head deeply buried in the sand of the Arabian Sea can say that the overnight renewals effected at a speed faster than that of the fastest jaguar or cheetah was done during January 5, 2015, to January 12, 2015, itself had been routines done in the course of official transactions without any iota of any malafide intention,” Lokayukta Justice P K Misra said in his order.
“The peculiar circumstances under which there was en masse renewal of the mining leases in a great hurry within a span of about one week is a grave incriminating circumstance against the three respondents which is required to be explained by the respondents concerned.”
The Supreme Court cancelled the leases in 2018, calling their renewal a violation of the law.
Parsekar said he did not seek or accept a single rupee for these lease renewals. “It was a policy decision of the Cabinet that was collectively taken. We had taken the decision keeping in mind the situation back then when the state was suffering on account of a mining shutdown. Restarting mining was our priority. The matter should have ended when the Supreme Court struck down the renewals.”
Acharya, who is posted as South Goa’s additional collector, said the Lokayukta has made certain recommendations to the state government. “It is up to the state government to accept these recommendations or reject them or partly accept them. It cannot be said to be an indictment. I will explore my legal options whether I move high court or explore any other option.”
P K Sain, who is now posted in the President’s secretariat, was unavailable for comments.
Goa Foundation director Claude Alvares said they would pursue the matter to ensure it is implemented despite past cases where such directions were ignored.
The Goa Foundation had filed a complaint calling renewal of the leases “an act of corruption”.
