Vashi plots allotted to builder sans tender illegal, says Cidco

NAVI MUMBAI: The 11-year-old public interest litigation (PIL) over allotment of prime plots in Vashi took an interesting turn on Wednesday. City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) admitted in Bombay high court that giving away the plots to a single developer, without any tender process, was “arbitrary and illegal”.
In a fresh affidavit, with reference to the PIL filed in 2004,Cidco manager (town services-I) Sanjay Paluskar said that allotment of plots of over 31,000 sq m area, opposite Vashi railway station, to M/s K Raheja group in 2003 was arbitrary and illegal because no tenders were called and the prime land was sold at a low rate of Rs 10,250 per sq m.
The verdict on this PIL is expected by next month.
Currently, Inorbit mall and Four Points Hotel have come up on these plots.
RTI activist Sandeep Thakur, who has become an intervener in the case in the absence of the two original petitioners, said the plot allotments were done without any transparency. (See Box)
The developer’s lawyer V A Gangal said, “Cidco has the authority to sell or deal with the use of its land. Also, the D K Sankaran Committee had never summoned my client (K Raheja) for inquiry, so how can it conclude that there were irregularities in the land sale?”
Gangal added that Cidco had converted IT land to commercial-cum-residential plots in 2003, since there were few takers then.
After the mall and hotel came up, land prices soared. “We are opposing the latest Cidco affidavit in the court,” he said.