Even while one Nira (Radia) is in the headlines these days for what is being dubbed as the greatest scam that caused a loss of Rs 170,000-crore to the nation, another Neera has been charged of ?corrupt practices? and sentenced to a four-year jail term for causing a loss of Rs 1.12 crore to the Uttar Pradesh government. The other Neera that we are talking about is the controversial former UP chief secretary Neera Yadav who was on Tuesday convicted and sentenced to a four-year jail term by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad in a land scam case when she was the chief executive officer of Noida in 1992-94.
The former UP chief secretary was found guilty of large-scale bungling in allotment of plots as chief of Noida Development Authority. Apart from having violated the rules in allotting an industrial plot in Noida to Flex Industries, she had also been charged with allotting out of turn plots to bureaucrats, politicians, industrialists and her near and dear ones. CBI special court Judge AK Singh also convicted the chairman and managing director of Flex Industries Ashok Chaturvedi in the case and sentenced him to four years prison term. The court also slapped fines of Rs 50,000 each on both the convicts, who were taken to high-security Dasna jail soon after the verdict was pronounced in a jam-packed courtroom.
The former chief secretary, who was present in the court during the hearing, broke down after the judge pronounced the verdict. She had earlier requested the court to give her a chair owing to her poor health. Chaturvedi was also there in the court. While the 57-year-old Chaturvedi was handcuffed while being taken to jail, Yadav, 62, who broke down after hearing the judgement, was spared. The two were convicted and sentenced under Section 13 Prevention of Corruption Act and 120B (conspiracy) of the
Indian Penal Code. “It is beyond my view to think about the involvement of bureaucrats in corrupt practices which is found to be correct (in this case) as the prosecution has proved against (former) chairperson Noida Neera Yadav and she is liable for punishment for adopting corrupt practices in allotment to industrialists which was acquired from poor farmers,” the judge said in his order.
It is the first conviction in a graft case for Yadav, a 1971 batch IAS officer who was chief secretary when Mulayam Singh Yadav was the chief minister. It may also be mentioned that Neera Yadav had also earned the dubious distinction of being the country’s first IAS officer to be removed from the chief secretary’s post by the Supreme Court on charges of corruption in 2005 and had also been tagged one of the “most corrupt officers” in a poll held by UP IAS association in 1997.
The CBI chargesheeted her in 2002 in at least four graft cases and since then they were pending in the court. She had been charged with allotting out of turn plots to bureaucrats, politicians, industrialists and her near and dear ones.
Judge A K Singh, however, acquitted Yadav in a second land scam case relating to allotment of land to Dr Mahesh Chand Sharma, chairman of Kailash Hospital in Noida. Sharma was also acquitted in the case. She had taken voluntary retirement after BSP leader Mayawati came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2007. Her husband Mahendra Singh, a former police officer, was a minister in BJP government in the state. Later he joined Samajawadi Party. In 2009, he and Yadav joined the BJP.
The petition against Yadav and others was filed by the Noida Entrepreneurs Association, which had approached the Supreme Court against Yadav in 1998 alleging large-scale bungling in the allotment of land in different sectors and in commercial Sector 18 in Noida during her tenure as head of Noida’s Development Authority following which the apex court directed the CBI to probe the matter.
Yadav had alleged that she was “framed” because she belonged to a backward caste. According to CBI, Yadav showed undue favour to Chaturvedi by allotting his company residential plots. Rates were reduced and eligibility criteria altered to favour the company.
While the initial criteria required Rs 10 crore as a company’s net worth and Rs 30 crore as annual turnover, it was altered to Rs 3 crore and 10 crore respectively to favour Flex. In the process, the government suffered a loss of Rs 1.12 crore, the CBI had contended.
Earlier, Yadav, Chaturvedi and Sharma had been granted bail by the court in the cases.