Lucknow: Special judge of MP-MLA court Pawan Kumar Rai has fixed the next hearing on November 2 taking cognizance of the charge sheet filed against 25 public servants and 32 consortium chiefs in the Rs 1,410 crore monument case that took place in Lucknow and Noida during the Mayawati regime.
The two former ministers named in the charge sheet include Babu Singh Kushwaha and Naseemuddin Siddiqui. It was alleged that there was a huge scam in the purchase of sandstone for the construction of monuments and gardens in Noida and Lucknow between 2007 and 2011 when the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was in power.
It was also disclosed in the investigation that the officers were arbitrarily authorised to fix the price. After fixing the high price, the lease was started. In the meantime, two big parks were constructed in Lucknow and Noida, in which hundreds of statues of the party's election symbol elephant and the then Chief Minister Mayawati, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and Bharat Ratna BR Ambedkar were installed. At that time, the decision of the Mayawati government was widely criticised by the opposition leaders.
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The scam came to light after Lokayukta Justice NK Mehrotra submitted the report on the scam to the then Governor. Hence, the Samajwadi Party government had recommended a detailed investigation into the scam by the CBI or SIT alleging a scam of Rs 1,400 crore in the construction of monuments on the recommendation of the Lokayukta.
In 2014, the then SP government had handed over the investigation of the case to the Vigilance Establishment (Vigilance) of the Uttar Pradesh police. However, the Vigilance investigation went slowly in four years and there was no progress despite the intervention of the Allahabad High Court.
After the BJP government came to power in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked the Vigilance Department to expedite the probe. It interrogated the former minister of the then BSP government Naseemuddin Siddiqui. Based on his statement, Vigilance had summoned former minister Babu Singh Kushwaha for questioning by serving a notice on him. Naseemuddin Siddiqui had answered all the questions of Vigilance. Further investigation is on.
