Faced with serious charges of land grab and corruption against top members, India Against Corruption today decided to look inwards.
It has ordered a panel of retired High Court judges to look into the charges being made against three members Prashant Bhushan, Mayank Gandhi and Anjali Damanya and give a report in three months.
The members would have to leave the party if charges were proved right, Arvind Kejriwal said today. The three-member ombudsman which would function as the internal Lokpal of the new party would comprise former Delhi High Court judge A P Shah, Justice BH Marlapalle of Bombay High Court, and Justice Jaspal Singh of the Delhi High Court.
Prashant Bhushan has been accused of land grab in Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. He is accused of getting permission from the Himachal Pradesh Government through his influence to buy land in Palampur for an educational trust. Bhushan explained this recently saying that they had bought the land with good intent and it was not for any profit making. We spent five crore rupees for that land which used to be an unused tea plantation.
"Whenever some work against corruption was being done by them, we are asked about Prashant Bhushan's property in Palampur. So we decided to get an independent inquiry done since the Government is not ordering one. We have asked the Government several times to order any of its agencies to probe any charges against us. Since they are not doing it we will do it through our ombudsmen," Kejriwal said.
Anjali Damnya whose RTI applications have been instrumental in exposing an irrigation scam in Maharashtra and who recently came up with charges against BJP national president Nitin Gadkari has also been accused of asking the irrigation department to go for tribal land to save her own farm house.
She replied to this charge last week and said that she had suggested that the irrigation department acquire land from tribals but pay them sufficient compensation which is in the form of land in their case. So what wrong did I do? she asked.
Similarly Mayank Gandhi has been accused of misusing his NGO Remaking of Mumbai to help his uncle Lalit Gandhi's Lok Group in bagging land deals. Lok Group later got a redevelopment scheme in Mumbai and is accused of selling part of the land he got for conducting a pilot project and causing losses to investors.
Mayank Gandhi has denied these as baseless charges, while welcoming the inquiry. I will leave if found guilty, he said today. People call me a land shark and builder. My integrity is unimpeachable. I was employed in the NGO of a builder for four years, he said .
Asked whether these members should not resign while the probe is on, Kejriwal said that if the ombudsmen desired so, they would resign.
He asked members of the public to send all evidence they had against the members at the IAC address.
Kejriwal also denied today that he had suppressed any information on Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. We had posted online all the evidence we had on Pawar in May itself and had fasted for his resignation for ten days. What more could we do? he asked.
Day before yesterday our target was Nitin Gadkari and so we stuck to that.
The way Shiv Sena and Pawar were defending Gadkari, it proved out point that all parties are in it together.It is no longer possible to make out who is in the UPA and who is in the NDA, he said.
Kejriwal said that the question whether businessmen can be politicians is a case of conflict of interest and has to be examined by all concerned. He said the worst part was when successful businessmen were made members of parliamentary committees where they can influence policies related to their area of work. That is certainly not desirable, he said.
Asked whether he would be exposing any more politician this month, Kejriwal answered in the negative and added : We are very responsible and we are collecting evidence before we say something on anyone.
