india

Updated: Apr 27, 2019 00:14 IST

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a first information report (FIR) and six preliminary enquiries (PEs ) to probe alleged irregularities in the disinvestment of 21 state-owned sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh in 2010-11, when Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati was chief minister, according to officials in the agency and a copy of the FIR accessed by HT.

The irregularities led to a loss of Rs 1,179 crore to the state exchequer, according to a 2013 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) that formed the basis of the case.

Although no Uttar Pradesh government official or politician has been named in the FIR or PEs registered on Thursday, seven people who allegedly submitted forged documents in the purchase of the mills, run by the UP State Sugar Corporation Limited, have been charged in the FIR with forgery, cheating and under section 629 (A) of the Companies Act , which deals with providing false evidence, the FIR said.

The FIR and PEs have been registered at a time when the BSP, in an alliance with one-time rival Samajwadi Party (SP), is taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in elections to the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

BSP national general secretary Ramachal Rajbhar said the investigation was a misuse of federal agencies by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government to harass and pressurise leaders of opposition parties. “The people will give befitting reply to the BJP in the ongoing Lok Sabha election,” he said. The controversy began in 2013 when CAG, in a report, said that the sugar mills had been sold at “dirt cheap” prices. On April 12, 2018, the Yogi Adityanath- led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh issued a notification seeking a CBI investigation into the case.

Naseemuddin Siddiqui, once a close aide to Mayawati and a former minister in her government from 2007-2012, claimed in 2017 that the “sugar mills were sold on the instructions of then CM Mayawati and BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra”. After his claim, Mayawati said Siddiqui alone was to blame for the irregularities.

The UP government asked CBI to investigate the “entire sale proceedings of 21 sugar mills,” including use of bogus companies and documents in the purchase of seven closed mills in Deoria, Bareilly, Laxmiganj, Hardoi, Ramkola, Chittauni and Barabanki. The matter was earlier investigated by the local police. An FIR was registered at the Gomti Nagar police station in November 2017 against two companies which bought the mills — Namrata Marketing Private Limited and Girasho Company Private Limited. This FIR has been shared with the CBI.

In its recommendation for the CBI probe, the current UP government has alleged the Mayawati government had sold the 21 mills, of which 10 were operational, at prices much lower than the market prices. The mills were built over 500 hectares of land worth ₹2,000 crore at current prices, according to a CBI official, who asked not to be named.

Despite being aware of the alleged irregularities, the next state government , led by Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, didn’t take any action on the alleged irregularities.

Yogi Adityanath, after coming to the power, said he would probe the matter as “nobody can be allowed to sell such government properties at dirt cheap rates as the property belonged to the people”.