LUCKNOW, 22 May 2007 — The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has referred the illegal land grabbing case of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan to the Law and Judiciary Department for necessary action.
A senior bureaucrat speaking to Arab News on condition of anonymity said that Amitabh is liable to be prosecuted on charges of cheating, forgery, breach of trust and under sections 420, 406, and 408 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The government may also press for other criminal charges against him for tampering with government records and taking possession of reserved Dalit land.
If arrested, Amitabh’s image would come crashing down to earth, the official said, and added that not only Amitabh but Samajwadi Party supremo and General Secretary Amar Singh would also be named as co-accused in the land case. Since the charges against Amitabh and other co-accused are a cognizable offense, the possibility of all of them being arrested and the government prosecutor requesting the court for an eight-day police remand for investigation purposes cannot be ruled out.
In these circumstances, Amitabh, former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh are likely to apply for anticipatory bail from the court to prevent arrest and police custody.
Amitabh must be a worried man, for he has never ever been behind bars. An arrest would demoralize and tarnish his image. Perhaps he may be pondering and repenting now for associating with the Samajwadi Party and its leaders and campaigning for it in the recently concluded assembly elections. Amitabh no doubt is now in deep trouble.
On one hand the ruling BSP state government is tightening the noose around his neck and on the other hand the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra state is also contemplating legal action against Amitabh for furnishing forged and fake certificates from Barabanki district administration declaring him as a farmer and submitting it to the sub-divisional magistrate of Wadgaon Maval area in Pune district, so as to legalize the agricultural land that he purchased in Maval town. Apart from being prosecuted in UP, Amitabh may also face similar action in Pune too.
The Bachchan family may be thinking now as to whether the marriage of their actor son Abhishek with actress Aishwarya Rai recently had brought good luck or a spell of doom in the form of trouble on the land issue. In an effort made by the Land Consolidation Department during the former Samajwadi Party government rule to make Amitabh the owner of a piece of agricultural land in Daulatpur village of Mohammedpur Pargana in Fathepur town of Barabanki district, the issue had boomeranged on District Collector Ashish Goyal and Fatehpur Sub-Divisional Magistrate Mahendra Singh, who were shunted out for not obeying the orders of the SP government to make changes in the land records to make Amitabh the owner of the agricultural land.
In fact, there are no answers as to how Amitabh was allotted the agricultural land in Daulatpur village during the Land Consolidation Survey. Another former District Collector of Barabanki Rama Shankar Shahu who replaced Goyal, later heard the Amitabh case and after examining the Land Consolidation report in which a piece of land earmarked for the Dalits was shown vacant, allotted the same to Amitabh. Prior to this, the name of Amitabh did not figure in any agricultural land records in the state.
According to sources, the whole conspiracy to include the name of Amitabh in the agricultural land records was hatched by the officials of the Revenue Department of Barabanki on the instructions of ministers in the SP government. A revenue official Vanshilal who refused to change and tamper with the land records and include the name of Amitabh, was shunted out and replaced by a suspended clerk, who did the dirty work. The land grabbing by Amitabh was first exposed by a local Congress leader Amir Haider, who approached the court against the order of the district collector allotting land reserved for Dalits to Amitabh by fraudulent means.
Thereafter the case was handed to A.P. Shukla, additional district collector of Barabanki for investigations and report by the Court.
Based on the report of Shukla, which stated that the allotment of agricultural land to Amitabh was illegal and void, the allotment was canceled. Aggrieved by the order of the additional district collector, Amitabh has now filed an appeal in the court of Divisional Commissioner, Faizabad, which is slated to be heard on May 28.
Governor Attacks Samajwadi Party in Joint Session of Assembly
The three-day session of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly began here yesterday. Gov. T.V. Rajeshwar launched a frontal attack on the former Samajwadi Party government during his address to the joint session of the assembly.
Chief Minister Mayawati and former chief minister and leader of the opposition Mulayam Singh Yadav came face to face for the first time. Rajeshwar said that there was complete collapse of law and order during the Samajwadi Party government rule.
Mafias and goons had a free hand creating fear and terror in the minds and hearts of the people in the state during the rule of the SP government. The governor also stated that there was widespread corruption and that crime figures had not decreased as claimed by the Mulayam government, but the reality was that crime had increased fourfold. There was no safety and security of the people during the SP government rule, he added.
Lavishing praise on Chief Minister Mayawati, the governor said that the new BSP government was sincerely committed to serve the people and was trying to restore the law and order situation.
Criminals, the governor said, would no longer be able to create terror and people would have nothing to fear from the mafias and the goons. “People are now freed from the jaws of anti-social elements,” Rajeshwar said.
