13 years later, 3 acre prime plot of Yerawada police station in eye of storm

Ajit Pawar, who is now Maharashtra deputy chief minister and in-charge of Pune, had asked her to hand over the said plot of land to the highest bidder

PUNE: A three-acre prime urban plot belonging to the Yerawada police station is at the centre of a fresh controversy – 13 years after the then Pune police commissioner, Meeran Chadha Borwankar, objected to the transfer of its ownership to a private builder who was later arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the 2G spectrum case.

The current market price of which is estimated to be around ₹200 crores. (SHANKAR NARAYAN/ HT PHOTO)

Borwankar’s latest book, ‘Madam Commissioner: The Extraordinary Life of an Indian Police Chief’, has stirred a hornet’s nest with the retired IPS officer writing that the then district guardian minister, Ajit Pawar, who is now Maharashtra deputy chief minister and in-charge of Pune, had asked her to hand over the said plot of land to the highest bidder. Borwankar writes that she refused to relinquish the plot, saying that the police needed it for expansion, despite insistence from the then district guardian minister.

When contacted, Borwankar, who was in Delhi on Sunday, said, “I am not talking to the media”. When asked specifically whether Dada – as she refers to the minister in her book – is Ajit Pawar, Borwankar said, “Your guess is as good as mine”. Satyapal Singh, under whose tenure the auction was carried out, was unreachable despite repeated attempts as his phone was out of range. Ajit Pawar’s phone was switched off; he had refuted claims made in Borwankar’s book while speaking to the media earlier. Ajit Pawar’s close aides in Pune and Mumbai refused to comment.

The period Borwankar is referring to in her book is immediately after taking charge as the Pune police commissioner in July 2010 when Ajit Pawar was the district guardian minister. The promoter of D B Realty, Shahid Balwa (who was later imprisoned in the 2G spectrum case), had won the bid for the three-acre prime plot, the current market price of which is estimated to be around ₹200 crores.

Borwankar writes: “I received a call from the divisional commissioner that the district minister had asked for me and that I should see him the day after in the morning. He also mentioned the issue of the Yerawada police station land which needed to be discussed. I learned that the three-acre land had been auctioned, and that we had to hand it over to the highest bidder, who would in return construct 500 residential quarters for the policemen in the existing headquarters.”

She goes on to write that she studied the facts on record in the file, which revealed that the auction had throughout been led and supervised by the divisional commissioner. “It was very surprising as the land belonged to the police department,” the retired IPS officer of the 1981 batch writes. She goes on to describe her visit to the divisional commissioner’s office where she met the ‘minister’. She recalls that the minister had a huge paper map of the area and that he explained that the auction had concluded successfully and that she should proceed to handover the land to the highest bidder. “I replied that Yerawada had literally become a centre of Pune and that the police would never get such a prime land. I added that having recently taken over, giving police land to a private party would be perceived as the new police commissioner having sold herself out. But the minister simply overruled me and insisted that I complete the process, which he declared was over. I even said that the process itself was flawed and against the interest of the police department. It would just not be possible for me to relinquish such a prime piece of police land to a private party when we ourselves needed it. The minister lost his cool and hurled the map at the glass table,” the former Pune police commissioner writes in her book. She goes on to say that the minister made many remarks against the then home minister, R R Patil, which could never have been reproduced in the book.

When contacted, the then divisional commissioner, Dilip Band, denied that Ajit Pawar had insisted on the plot being handed over to the highest bidder. Band said that the plan was to construct 495 houses and other additional quarters as promised by the builder and therefore, the proposal was sent to the Pune police commissioner and she was asked to look into it. A committee of seven persons including the chief engineer, collector and police officials was present and the proposal was approved and sent to the government for final sanction. Following the government’s approval, the builder was asked to pay ₹1 crore as tender amount which he did. Earlier, Satyapal Singh was the Pune police commissioner but following his transfer, Borwankar replaced him, Band said.

Band further said, “We wanted to start work but we did not get possession. Borwankar was in favour of transferring the land, and tried to reason out that the police will get 495 quarters including those for officials. The builder had given a good rate but Borwankar did not find the proposal acceptable. This proposal is not related to the then guardian minister Ajit Pawar as the home department had put forth the proposal. A portion of that land was to be used for constructing a police station. Still, the quarters have not been constructed and the project is incomplete.”

When contacted, Prithviraj Chavan, who took over as chief minister of Maharashtra in November 2010, said, “The district guardian minister cannot directly take the decision and it’s a case which has to be dealt with at the cabinet level. I was not the chief minister at that time.”