Changed allotment GR without verifying facts: Gharat

Deputy secretary for revenue and forest, JK Gharat, on Tuesday, admitted that the corrigendum to the government resolution permitting allotment (GR) of the Adarsh plot was changed without verifying facts with the City Collector.

Deputy secretary for revenue and forest, JK Gharat, on Tuesday, admitted that the corrigendum to the government resolution permitting allotment (GR) of the Adarsh plot was changed without verifying facts with the City Collector.

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On August 16, 2004, the state government issued a corrigendum to its earlier allotment order of the Adarsh plot dated July 9, 2004, in which it deleted the words ‘possession is with the defence establishment. This change was done at the behest of the members of the housing society.

“I did not get the correct position on the possession [of the plot] checked through the collector,” Gharat said.

The Adarsh Housing Society had given the state two options to reword the earlier GR. The first option called for the deletion of the line “possession is with the defence department.” The second option was to add the word ‘illegal’ in the GR to read “illegal possession with local military authorities”.

Gharat claimed that no one forced him to recommended the omission of the words “presently in possession of the defence establishment,” from the GR.

“I did not feel it would amount to a major change to delete the reference to the possession of [the plot] with the defence establishment,” Gharat said.

Gharat also claimed that he never checked whether Adarsh Housing Society had complied with the conditions of the letter of intent (LoI) that the government had issued.

“I did not call for information from the collector whether the Adarsh Housing Society had complied with the conditions of the LoI or not. It is true that it was my duty to call for the information from the collector,” Gharat said.