Govt gets a stick to beat Anna

Congress resurrects six-year-old corruption controversy between Anna and the Maharashtra govt

Mumbai: The genie in a six-and-a-half-year-old bottle has suddenly come to haunt Anna Hazare. Just as the veteran Gandhian was bracing himself to launch a hunger strike on August 16 in the national capital, the Congress and the UPA government it leads at the Centre raked up observations pertaining to him in an early 2005 inquiry report over a suspected case of corruption -- the very issue against which the Maharastrian social activist has fought all his life.
It all started in September 2003 when the Maharastra government ordered a probe into allegations of corruption and maladministration against several people, including four ministers and 10 trusts Hazare and his associates ran in their native state. The Justice P B Sawant Commission, which gave its report on February 23, 2005, cited maladministration, illegality and irregularity in the functioning of the trusts. It held Hazare guilty of corrupt practice and acts of maladministration.
That the Commisssion had devoted 123 of the total 379 pages on its observations on the complaints of corruption and illegality in the trusts led by or related to Hazare got highlighted today when Manish Tewari, spokesman for the Congress, a party that has been at loggerheads with the Gandhian for long, spoke about the matter at a press conference in Delhi.

After the Sawant committee report came out, the state government appointed another panel led by former chief secretary DM Sukhthankar. It had left it to the government to take necessary action. The Congress now sensed it as a weapon to hit back at Hazare, as the party today asked him to come clean on the charges against him and his trusts. Business Standard made repeated attempts to reach Hazare over phone, but he remained unreachable.
The Commission had ruled that the agitational activities of the trusts had to be carried on by observing certain norms; they should be peaceful and legal. "Care has to be taken to see that they do not lead to anti-social activities or become extra-constitutional centres of power. Such a development will itself encourage lawlessness and spell out the end of the rule of law." It further observed that agitational activities "also constitute a social power, which is as much liable to be abused as the political power. When social power is used irresponsibly or to subvert the constitutional authority, it is hardly distinguishable from terror. The social power should not become or allowed to become an engine of oppression of the innocent."
Justice Sawant went into the mode of functioning and the formation of 10 trusts under various rules and laws. His Commission, by and large, found truth in the allegations relating to the subversion of law, maladministration and illegality. For instance, "the Hind Swaraj Trust did not take care to examine the provisions of law, while alienating the land induced the zilla parishad to take possession of the property and to construct there on a Samaj Mandir. There is apparent lack of care on the part of trustees and to that extent there is maladminitration."

In another case relating to complaints made by several against the members of the Hazare-led Bhrashtachar Virodhi Andolan, the Commission observed that complaints against his activists had from time to time been brought to the Gandhian's notice. "But he had failed to act upon the said complaints which appear to have given some activists a free hand of misconduct."
The Commission pulled up Hazare for remaining chairman of the Krishna Pani Puravatha Yojana Sahakari Sanstha during 2001-03, since he did not hold any land within the jurisdiction of the society. Therefore it was "illegal".
Also, the Commission accused the Hazare-led Yadavbaba Shikshan Prasarak Mandal of not reporting to the Charity Commissioner as required under the provisions of Bombay Public Trust Act for the purchase of three pieces of land by and the construction thereon at Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmadnagar district. It observed this was a case was an irregular act amounting to maladministration.
What's more, the Yadavbaba Shikshan Prasarak Mandal spent Rs 46,374 on the renovation of a Yadav Baba temple which was contrary to the objective of the Trust. "The amount," the Commission ruled, "would be used be spent on education and that too seculal education. Both the objects were defied by the said expenses incurred on renovation of Yadavbaba temple and therefore constituted illegalities."
Source: Business Standard