Mumbai: The Lokayukta in his inquiry has found Housing Minister Prakash Mehta guilty in the slum rehabilitation scheme at MP Mill compound in Tardeo. The minister had allegedly used Section 3K of the Slum Act to allow extra building rights to a scheme meant for the Project Affected Persons (PAPs).
However, Prakash Mehta refuted all the allegations and said that there was no such report from Lokayukta. Meanwhile, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party demanded that Mehta should be sacked from the cabinet.
The minister was caught in corruption charges to favour private developer in the SRA scheme. After demand from the opposition, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis assured that the Lokayukta will probe the matter. Last year, Fadnavis had requested Governor Vidyasagar Rao to urge the Lokayukta to investigate the charges. Maharashtra Lokayukta Justice ML Tahiliyani was investing the matter.
The minister had allegedly used Section 3K of the Slum Act to allow extra building rights to a scheme meant for the project affected persons (PAPs). The approval allegedly resulted in the benefit of extra sale component of 10,255.88 sqm. However, the sources from the Lokayukta office said that the minister did not make the chief minister aware about the project and without chief minister’s knowledge, the housing minister wrote a remark that chief minister had been made aware about this.
The report is likely to be submitted in the assembly session that starts from June 17.
Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant demanded that the minister should be expelled from the cabinet and CM should file criminal cases against Mehta.
NCP leader Dhananjay Munde also demanded that Mehta should resign from his post or the chief minister should ask him to resign over the serious charges of corruption.
However, Mehta said that there are no serious charges in the report. “The report will be tabled in the assembly, where the truth will come out. The government will decide what action should be taken on the report,” said Mehta.
