HC stalls Smriti Irani’s witch-hunt on vocational centre in Amethi

In a major setback to the BJP, the High Court of Allahabad (Lucknow Bench), on Thursday passed interim orders that will allow the Vocational Training Centre at Jais, in Amethi, to continue its activities .

Apparently prodded by Union Textile Affairs Minister Smriti Irani, the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh Government was trying to shut down the Jais Centre.

The High Court's order ensures that the vocational training activity at the Centre will carry on unabated and without any interference from the government. This is being regarded as a major victory for the women of Amethi for the Jais centre—as argued in the Court—was providing vocational training for 15 years transforming the lives of more than 15 lakh women by empowering them with livelihood opportunities.

POLITICISING A NOBLE INITIATIVE

The political witch-hunt against the Jais centre was initiated and carried out by Smriti Irani who has made many speeches and held several meetings with the district administration regarding this issue directing them to take coercive action.

It perhaps didn’t matter to her that such actions would only end up destroying the livelihood of lakhs of innocent women of Amethi and Uttar Pradesh who had over the years benefited from the training and expertise provided at the centre.

Irani had, during the 2014 general elections, first accused the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust of using the land (about 10,000 square feet) in Jais alleging that it belonged to the state.

After the Yogi Adityanath government came to power, the district administration had served a notice to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust on April 22, asking the trust under which order it was using the land.

Sub Divisional Magistrate, Tiloi tehsil, Ashok Shukla had said that the land should be under control of a government department or institution as per rules. He had further added that the land had been earmarked for various activities of the state government like community health centres, schools and other community facilities. However, he had added that the Trust was using it for giving training to local women. There are no papers available to show under whose authority it was being used by Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojna, he alleged.

Responding to the notice, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s representative Chandrakant Dubey had said: “There are no political beneficiaries of it. By taking back the possession of this land, the project will not stop. We will impart training somewhere else. But it should not be done with political vendetta.”

The district administration had sent two more notices to the Trust.

The Trust though maintained that the land was allotted to Manuj Kalyan Kendra and they have been running the vocational training programme jointly for the last fifteen years. The land for the centre was allotted by the government over three decades ago to Manuj Kalyan Kendra, a not-for-profit organisation, for vocational training purposes.

It also had said that the activities carried out at the Centre were in fulfillment of the objects for which land was allotted to Manuj Kalyan Kendra and at their request. Rajiv Gandhi Mahile Vikas Pariyojana ‘RGMVP’ was providing the training for and on behalf of Manuj Kalyan Kendra (MKK). MKK remains the allottee of the land of the training centre and RGMVP was merely a programme conducting the training.

“By repeatedly questioning RGMVP on the land, the UP Government was deliberately trying to politicise the issue by sending notices to, manhandling and threatening women and physically visiting the premises asking threatening questions,” said Trust sources.