Didn’t approve Ajit Pawar clean chit, ACB acted alone, says Fadnavis

Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said the clean chit by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar

Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said the clean chit by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in the multi-crore Vidarbha irrigation scam was not approved by him.

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“It [the affidavit] was not submitted to me or anyone in the government. It has been done at the ACB level. I had resigned a day earlier [November 26]. How can I have anything to do with this,” asked Fadnavis.

HT had reported a day earlier that ACB in its affidavit to the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court (HC) late last month ruled out the involvement of Pawar in the scam.

The affidavit was submitted a day after the Devendra Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar government crumpled on November 26, three days after they took oath as chief minister and deputy chief minister. On the same evening, it was clear that the Shiv Sena-led three-party coalition would form the next government, but Uddhav Thackeray had not yet been sworn-in as the chief minister.

The former chief minister, who initiated an open inquiry against Pawar in the irrigation scam in December 2014, soon after he took over the top job in the state, said he would oppose this clean chit.

“This [the ACB affidavit] is very surprising. How can one affidavit already filed by ACB be contradicted by another affidavit. I totally oppose this and I am sure the court will not accept this,’’ Fadnavis told HT.

He added, “The scam will not be probed fairly now unless it is done under the direct supervision of the HC.’’

The affidavit signed by Superintendent of Police, Nagpur, ACB, Rashmi Nandedkar, was submitted on November 27 to the court and was given to the petitioners on December 3.

The affidavit was filed to give a status check of the scam investigations in response to a clutch of petitions that have all made allegations against Pawar, as the former water resources minister, in the scam.

It said: “Considering facts and evidence collected during the course of inquiry/investigation, it is observed that there is no criminal liability on part of the chairman of Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (minister of water resources department).”

This is, as Fadnavis mentions, a turnaround from the affidavit filed by ACB in November 2018, when the agency indicated that Pawar was culpable in a “modus operandi’’ to “defraud the government’’, but sought more time to reach a logical conclusion.

Pawar as water resources minister and hence ex-officio chairman of the VIDC faces allegations of granting arbitrary cost escalations to irrigation projects, handing out mobilisation advances to contractors in contravention of norms, besides other allegations of wrongdoing.

“This affidavit does not have any value because the court will go with the evidence, which we have submitted to the court. It is clear that this was done in haste to give a clean chit and contradicts ACB’s stance taken last year, which had detailed the modus operandi of the scam,’’ said Sharad Patil, one of the main petitioners, who represents the organisation, Jan Manch, that played a key role in exposing the scam in Vidarbha.

One of Jan Manch’s pleas in the court is to seek transfer of the irrigation scam probe to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

“We will now insist on a CBI probe as we don’t have faith in the ACB. We plan to take this to its logical conclusion, we are not giving up,’’ said Patil.