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New Delhi:
Former Union Minister Arun Shourie has been named as an accused by a particular CBI court docket in a corruption case involving the disinvestment of the Laxmi Vilas Palace Hotel in Rajasthan’s Udaipur. Criminal circumstances needs to be filed in opposition to Arun Shourie, former bureaucrat Pradeep Baijal and hotelier Jyotsna Suri, the court docket has mentioned.
The court docket needs the lodge sale to be reopened and has famous that it was bought at an enormous loss to the federal government on Arun Shourie’s watch as Disinvestment Minister within the Atal Bihari Vajpayee authorities.
Hotel Laxmi Vilas was valued at over Rs 252 crore however was bought for Rs 7.5 crore, mentioned the court docket.
A former royal property, Laxmi Vilas is a five-star lodge on the banks of the lake Fateh Sagar and is now referred to as the Lalit Laxmi Vilas palace.
The CBI had filed a closure report in late 2019 saying there was “no evidence” within the 2002 case. “It is concluded that evidence worth launching prosecution was not found in the entire process of disinvestment of M/s Laxmi Vilas Palace Hotel, Udaipur,” the company mentioned.
But the particular court docket in Jodhpur rejected the report and ordered additional investigation.
“I have not seen the order, advocates will examine the order and then we will decide what to do next,” Arun Shourie mentioned on the particular CBI court docket order.
The CBI has sought authorized opinion.
According to the investigating company’s report, accessed by NDTV, the disinvestment of the government-run luxurious lodge “resulted in wrongful loss of about Rs 143.48 crore to the government and corresponding wrongful gain to the accused persons individually/jointly”.
But the company in its report had pinned the blame on the valuation performed by a non-public agency M/s Kanti Karamsey and firm stating that the property was undervalued at Rs 7.85 crore and primarily based on this valuation, reserve value was fastened at Rs 6.12 crore.
“During the course of the investigation, we had reevaluated the property through Income Tax Department and it was valued at Rs 193.28 crore. Undervaluation of the property by Kanti Karamsey and Company led to the loss to the exchequer,” sources within the company advised NDTV.
The CBI registered a case on August 13, 2014 on the premise of a preliminary inquiry that alleged that Pradeep Baijal had abused his place within the disinvestment of Laxmi Vilas Palace Hotel.
On the CBI’s closure report, the court docket mentioned: “The unknown officers and private persons indulged in this conspiracy from 1999 to 2002 to cause loss of money to the government. The land was valued at Rs 45 per square yard. Even a spoon in the hotel would be costlier than that,” the decide added.
Laxmi Vilas palace was initially a royal property that belonged to the previous kings of Udaipur. During the accession of princely states, the large property was handed over to the federal government. After independence, the federal government ran it as a lodge. In 2002 it was disinvested and purchased by the Lalit Suri group of motels.
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