Rs 26 cr paid in kickbacks to Babush for land conversions

TEAM HERALD

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PANJIM:This has always been Goa’s worst kept secret. That huge amounts of kickbacks have been paid to the Town and Country Planning minister/department for conversions of lands into settlement. With the expose of the Income Tax assessment order of  controversial bureaucrat N Suryanarayana where Rs 26.58 crore of monies have been paid to the then TCP minister Babush Monserrate, in 2006, cash for conversions happened in RP-2011. Where is the guarantee it didn’t happen for the RP 2021 plan.

When Herald contacted Chief Town Planner Putturaju for his comments whether these huge tracts of orchard or agricultural land have now been converted in the RP 2021, he said. “I can give info only if you can give me the survey numbers,” adding “If you give me the survey numbers I will be more than happy to help as I too want to know what has happened.”

If these lands have been marked as settlement in RP 2021, then it’s clear that the TCP is honouring bribes paid for the 2011 plan.

This is the step by step process of the bribe route

Step 1: Suryanarayana, who set up a syndicate to buy and sell land (as mentioned in a signed document, a part of the assessment order) paid a total amount of Rs 24.75 crore to two middlemen cum brokers. Pradeep Palekar, MD of Primeslots Properties Pvt Ltd for conversion of 11 plots of land. An amount of Rs 19.75 crore was paid during the period April to August 2006 to Sadiq Shaik at his residence in Dona Paula and in the office of Dinar Tarcar (chairman of Landscape Group) at Campal, Panjim, according to documents with the assessment order. Rs 4.99 crore was also paid through his wife, N Sunitha’s Andhra Bank account for the stopped purchase of lands.

Step 2: According to investigations by the Income Tax  Central Circle Panjim,  this amount was used by the middle men to pay two major kickbacks to Monserrate through his companies totalling in value to Rs 26.58 crore in cash/cheque and in kind.

The break up is Rs 11.8 crore for land at Sancoale to Good Earth Developers run by his son Rohit Monserrate, without any receipt of sale consideration and Rs 15 crore to Raj Hospitality Pvt Ltd in which Babush Monserrate is a director without any security or documentary evidence. This was paid by Sadiq Shaikh.

“Facts and circumstances of the case suggest that the above(land transfer at Sancoale) is a sham transaction to pass on the payment in the form of land. The whole sequence of financial transactions between N Suryanarayana, Sadiq Sheikh and Babush Monserrate (as evidenced by seized page 42) were to reach Babush Monserrate. This transfer of land at Sancoale to Good Earth Developers is a colourable device to pay Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate directly.”

Incidentally, Good Earth Developers is a partnership firm in which Rohit and Anand Chandra Bose, a prominent builder in Vasco are partners, according to the IT assessment order.

What is important now is to know that these conversions for which bribes were paid for, did not happen, since in January 2007 Babush was made to resign and the RP-2011  was also scrapped.

Despite all this, Sadiq Shaikh, a well-known builder who managed all conversions through the minister, promised that the conversion would take place through the same person sooner or later.

The document says that the Suryanarayana syndicate paid Rs 24.75 crore to Sadiq for conversion.