AAP chief ministerial candidate, former bureaucrat Elvis Gomes, who was endorsed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as an “honest officer” may just have to prove his endorsement for real, even as the Goa Police’s Anti-Corruption Bureau issued him summons in connection with a several-year old alleged land acquisition scam case.
Gomes has, however, called the summons an act of political victimisation, claiming he was not even in office when the land scam, which was allegedly carried out during the tenure of the Congress-led coalition Government and has demanded a probe into all land acquisition processes initiated over the last ten years, during the respective tenures of the current BJP-led coalition government and the erstwhile Congress-led coalition government.
The summons issued to Gomes reads: “You are hereby issued notice to remain present at ACB office without fail for the purpose of investigation. Further, you are directed not to tamper with the evidence for fair investigation. If you fail to remain present, strict action will be initiated against you”.
The summons come a few days after Gomes was anointed as the Chief Minister candidate of the AAP by Delhi Chief Minister and AAP co-founder Arvind Kejriwal during a public rally in Goa on December 19.
Kejriwal had described Gomes as an “honest officer”, who had served the state administration with honesty and integrity, Kejriwal had said at the public meeting.
The First Information Report against Gomes was filed in February this year, while Gomes, a state cadre civil service officer was still in office, soon after his name was being touted as one of the probable candidates of AAP, in the upcoming State Assembly elections.
According to the FIR, Gomes, along with then minister for housing in the Congress-led coalition government Nilkanth Halarnkar had conspired to commit a land scam, using the Land Acquisition Act. The complaint alleged that an attempt had been made to illegally acquire nearly 30,256 sq metres of land in Margao town in South Goa and that the procedure was suspiciously dropped mid-way, in order to enable a private party to exploit the land commercially.
Halarnkar, who was then in the Nationalist Congress Party has now joined the Congress and has also been issued summons by the ACB.
Source : Daily Pioneer
