Single copy of Shah panel report tabled in Gujarat Assembly

Four years after MB Shah Commission submitted its report on allegations of corruption against the Gujarat Government headed then by Narendra Modi, a single copy of the report was on Friday, March 31 tabled in the Gujarat Assembly on the last day of the budget session.

Retired Supreme Court judge MB Shah had inquired into 14 allegations of corruption and irregularities against Modi and his government after Congress had given a memorandum to the President in 2011.

Gujarat Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil said that when he asked for a copy of the report from the Speaker, he was told to get it from the Secretariat. The report is said to run into 5,500 pages and has 22 volumes.

While tabling the report, the Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel claimed, "The state government is honest and non-corrupt and it has nothing to hide from the people of Gujarat."

During the month-long assembly session, Congress had disrupted the proceedings of the House several times over the issue of tabling of the Shah Commission report.

The commission was set up in 2011 by the Gujarat Government to probe into allegations of corruption, including wrongful land allotment to industrialists by the Narendra Modi-led state government.

Last week, Nitin Patel had claimed that the report could not find any credible substance or truth behind most of the allegations leveled against the Modi-led dispensation.

One of the allegations levelled then referred to business associates of former Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel's daughter, Anar Patel, being allotted 422 acres of land in 2010 by the state government at ₹15 per square metre as opposed to the government's stamp duty rate of ₹180 per square metre. A report can be read here.

Another Gujarat Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia had claimed that six companies namely Rahejas, DLF, Puri Foundation, TCS, Aqualine Properties and Satyam Computers were allotted huge tracts of prime land at nominal rates of ₹450 per square metre in Gandhinagar while the South Western Air Command (SWAC) was given land at ₹1,818 per sq metre. “He said Modi charged higher rates from India Air Force but charged less from industrialists,” reported The Indian Express. The report can be read here.

The Congress wanted an independent inquiry by the Lokayukta and when that request was denied, it chose not to appear before the Shah panel. However a Congress MLA had deposed before the panel on land allotted to the Adani group in Kutch. Babu Meghji Shah had appeared before the commission on various occasions presenting his grievances on land allotment to the Adani Group in Mundra region,according to a press release issued by government counsel Bhaskar Tanna after the MLA’s appearance before the commission.

With PTI inputs.