As Eknath Khadse gets clean chit, oppn says probe an eyewash

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Maharashtra has come under attack from the opposition for allegedly protecting former revenue minister Eknath Khadse, who was in the eye of a storm over allegations of corruption and misconduct.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Maharashtra has come under attack from the opposition for allegedly protecting former revenue minister Eknath Khadse, who was in the eye of a storm over allegations of corruption and misconduct.

Eknath Khadse in Maharashtra Vidan Sabha. (Hemant Padalkar/ HT file photo)

Khadse, one of the powerful ministers in the Fadnavis government, was said to be involved in a Rs 30-crore bribery case and charged with buying prime land in Pune at allegedly less than one-sixth the market price and flouting rules. He also allegedly received calls from underwood don Dawood Ibrahim’s Pakistan residence on his phone number.

He refuted all charges but was forced to resign on June 4 on the charges of impropriety in the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) land in Pune’s Bhosari industrial area that was acquired in the name of his wife and son-in-law.

Read: All you need to know about Khadse and why he matters in Maharashtra BJP

Maharashtra Lokayukta justice (retired) ML Tahiliyani found no evidence of Khadse’s direct involvement in the alleged bribery case and cleared the 63-year-old prominent leader from Leva Patil, the Other Backward Class (OBC) community that has a strong influence on politics in north Maharashtra, and closed the complaint.

Anti-corruption bureau (ACB) arrested Gajanan Patil, a BJP worker from Jalgaon and allegedly a close aide of the minister, in May for seeking a bribe of Rs 30 crore for the transfer of a plot in Thane. Khadse denied any link with Patil.

Reports said the Tahiliyani’s clean chit came a week before Khadse resigned from the BJP-led ministry.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Monday that the ACB has given Khadse a clean chit in the alleged bribery case and the anti-terrorist squad (ATS) probing calls from Dawood also found nothing against him.

Fadnavis has also come under fire for limiting the scope of inquiry into the accusations levelled against Khadse to just the Pune land deal controversy that will be probed by retired high court justice Dinkar Zoting.

Justice Zoting, who is expected to complete the inquiry in three months, will probe whether the land belonged to the MIDC, its acquisition was completed, whether a conflict of interest was involved in the deal or not and if it was illegal.

“Such committees have no legal standing and thus investigating a matter by a retired judge or a government officer doesn’t make any difference,” NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik, who faced judicial commission probe in the past for alleged corrupt practices, said.

Legal experts and political observers believe the move will unduly help Khadse in future.

YP Singh, a former IPS-officer-turned-criminal lawyer, said the basic difference between judicial commission and committee formed under a retired judge is that a commission has a legal backing.

“If the inquiry was constituted under the Commission of Enquiry Act then it would have gone with the powers of investigation. The commission can summon witnesses, they could be questioned and it would have called for documents. But now it is an informal sort of inquiry without any legal backing,” Singh said.

“Doing it would be detrimental to the consequences and it will unduly help Khadse,” he added.

Former advocate general Shreehari Aney, however, differed on the views.

“It’s a rule that only extremely grievous matters like the Godhra incident and others need to be investigated by the judicial commission. I believe this is more of an in-house nature of the inquiry that they are conducting,” Aney said.

“What has been averted is long and formalised process, which would have been needed for the judicial commission to complete the probe. I don’t think it is such a bad idea,” he said.

A frontline leader, Khadse was close to late Gopinath Munde. During the Sena-BJP alliance government, he handled finance, irrigation and higher education departments.

As the BJP emerged as the main opposition party after 2009 elections, Khadse was made the opposition leader in the state assembly. He led the opposition attack against the Congress-NCP government during 2009 and 2014 and was seen as a top contender when the BJP won in 2014 assembly elections.

However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah preferred Devendra Fadnavis.

Due to his influence, Khadse was given the significant revenue portfolio as a minister along with nine other departments.