Purani havelis come to haunt Lalit Modi

The IPL chief will now be the subject of a state-level inquiry into the purchase of four govt-owned havelis in a protected area in Jaipur at a fraction of their price by hospitality firm of which he and his wife are directors

CORNERED? IPL commissioner Lalit Modi. FILE PIC

Just when it seemed things couldn't get worse for IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, who is under the Income Tax department's scanner for 'irregularities' in the league and is expected to lose his job in the next few days, reports are emerging that the Rajasthan government is set to institute an inquiry into his role in the purchase of four heritage havelis in the protected Amber Palace zone in Jaipur.

Highly placed sources in the divisional commissioner office of the Mini Secretariat in Jaipur told MiD DAY that the inquiry report on the 'illegitimate' acquisition of havelis by Ananda Heritage Hotels, a hospitality brand in which Lalit Modi and his wife Minal are board members, is complete and has been submitted to the government for a state-level enquiry. The havelis were acquired to turn them into high-end luxury heritage hotels.

"All I can say at this point is that not all rumours of illegitimate acquisitions are baseless. The rules have been twisted and modified, which will be brought to light in the state-level enquiry," remarked Kiran Soni Gupta, divisional commissioner, Jaipur, who conducted the inquiry at the local level.

Discrepancies

The report by Gupta cites several discrepancies in the purchase of the havelis. For instance, Vikas Bhattacharya, who sold one portion of the Chabre Ki Haveli to Amer Heritage City Construction Pvt Ltd, which later changed its name to Ananda Heritage Hotels, is not the owner of the property. He was merely a travel guide and an encroacher who had been residing in the property for the last five decades. When Bhattacharya was asked to furnish the ownership documents, he declared that he wasn't the owner and that he had 'acquired' the property in 1958.

"Yes, I encroached the property and I've admitted this in my statement to the inquiry too. But, I've been paying all the taxes related to this property for a long time. Even the authorities recognised me as the owner of this property because they sent me notices when property taxes were not paid. It was only when my wife died that I sold the haveli for Rs 9 lakhs," Bhattacharya, a migrant from Kolkata, said.

According to the report, the properties were sold for Rs 20 lakh each, which is not even 10 per cent of the estimated market price. Also, the registrar didn't confirm the ownership history of the property before registering it in the name of the hospitality firm. Under the Land Registration Act, the registrar must verify if any land being registered is actually owned by the claimed owner.

According to Archaeolo-gical Survey of India (ASI) rules, no construction or modification can be done in a property that falls within 200 metres of a protected site. However, modification work in Bairathi Ki Haveli, which is not even 50 metres from the protected Shri Jagat Singh Shiromani Mandir is almost complete.

Despite repeated attempts, Lalit Modi remained unavailable for comment.