Even as former Utter Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh’s brother Shivpal Singh joined him to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing the Congress of targeting them in the Gomti Nagar plots allotment case, the Mayawati
government, in a surprise move, sought to withdraw two earlier affidavits dealing with hundreds of questionable allotments during Mr Singh’s tenure as CM and confined it only to 28 allotments to some VIPs.
A fresh affidavit filed by Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) secretary Anand Kumar Singh in the Supreme Court on November 14 said “it would be expedient in the interest of justice to treat counter-affidavits of September 26, 2005 filed by then LDA secretary Vijay Kumar Yadav and April 4, 2007 by the then vice-chairman B.B. Singh as not pressed”.
The fresh affidavit was “silent” on the role of Mr Mulayam Singh or any member of his family and instead held former LDA vice-chairman B.B. Singh, former secretary Rekha Gupta, former secretary Vijay Kumar Yadav, former joint secretary J.B. Singh, former town planner Mohan Yadav and former financial controller Animesh Kunwar and some other middle-rank official of the authority responsible for the allotment of 28 plots out-of-turn to some VIPs.
Accusing them of causing a loss of `2.88 crore to the exchequer, the affidavit said: “These officers/employees were responsible for giving concrete shape to the procedure of allotment of plot in an irregular and illegal manner in favour of 28 allottees mentioned in the inquiry report.”
The names of these officials had emerged from a fresh inquiry conducted by Vijay Shankar Pandey, commissioner of Lucknow division, the Mayawati government said.
The state government in the fresh affidavit submitted that the two earlier affidavits were sought to be not pressed as they did not “reflect the correct factual position as is evident from the gross irregularities found by the inquiry officer in his earlier report of September 25, 2007.”