Anna moves HC against diversion of hotel plot

Social activist Anna Hazare has moved the Bombay high court, alleging that the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) has allowed a developer to illegally sub-divide a plot admeasuring 47,000 sqm.

Social activist Anna Hazare has moved the Bombay high court, alleging that the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) has allowed a developer to illegally sub-divide a plot admeasuring 47,000 sqm.

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The plot has been reserved for a five-star hotel at Palm Beach in Navi Mumbai. Hazare also alleged that CIDCO diverted 32,000 sqm of the plot for a residential-cum-commercial construction.

Anna and his co-petitioner Sanjay Surve, 42, have sought an investigation into the purported illegalities involved in sub-division and diversion of the plot. The petition also sought setting aside the allotment of the plot to Pune-based partnership firms, Metropolis Hotels and Shishir Realty Pvt Ltd.

Hazare and Surve have said that since the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation was the planning authority for the area, CIDCO had no jurisdiction to entertain the proposal to allow sub-division and change of user.

The PIL alleges the plot has been transferred by CIDCO in gross violation of law and their own policy, which has consequentially resulted in losses to the housing development board and the state exchequer.

The petition further alleges that the allotment and subsequent event involved a massive and an orchestrated scam by CIDCO officials.

The petition is likely to come up for hearing on July 27.