Lalit Modi, friend's haveli plans done in by fallout with Vasundhara

Former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi had great plans for a haveli in Rajasthan, but it was aborted once ties between him and Vasundhara Raje plummeted, reports Prakash Bhandari.

Two ancient havelis bought by former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi and his wife Minal’s company at Amer, the old capital of Jaipur’s Kacchawa rulers, are now in possession of the state government with signages of the archaeology department stating that the property belongs to the state government.

Another Rajasthani architecture mansion (haveli), which was bought by Bina Kilachand, a close friend of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, has also been seized by the state government after the Congress government found that Modi, his wife and Kilachand had bought it illegally.

Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party government being in power in the state now, neither Modi nor Bina Kilachand has staked a claim over the ownership of these two ancient properties or retrieve them from the state government’s hold.

These havelis are located near the famous Amber fort and palace and is part of the heritage zone. They were sealed by the Jaipur municipal corporation after a probe conducted by the former commissioner of the Jaipur division, Kiran Soni Gupta, found that the person who sold it had no ownership rights on it.

The two havelis are in a dilapidated condition today, but Kilachand, who had bought one of the havelis, had spent a fortune on conserving it. During the previous reign of Vasundhara Raje as chief minister, between 2003 and 2008, she tried to restore it with a view to convert it into a super luxury heritage hotel and added a few rooms and a swimming pool to it.

The JMC sealed the havelis in 2013 on the ground that they belonged to the state government and their sale was illegal.

The havelis -- Bairathion ki Haveli and Chhabron ki Haveli -- perched on the hillocks in the vicinity of the historical Amber fort, changed hands in 2007 when the BJP was in power in the state.

The ownership of Bairathion ki Haveli was transferred and registered in the name of Online Construction Pvt Limited, a company owned by the Mumbai-based Bina Kilachand, who used to live with Vasundhara Raje in her official residence in Civil Lines. But she fell out with Vasundhara Raje and started living separately. The ownership of Chhabron ki Haveli was transferred to Heritage City Construction Pvt Limited in which Minal, Lalit Modi’s wife, is the director. The haveli, half of which is in ruins, has two rooms, a kitchen and two bathrooms.

Some work was in progress at the Kilachand-owned Bairathion ki Haveli when the JMC squad carried out the eviction process, while there was a family living in Chhabron ki Haveli. Both the havelis stand over plots measuring over 12,000 sq feet and are considered to be worth many crores.

The issue of transfer of the properties had come up in the Rajasthan assembly on several occasions. The Congress government, while disclosing the findings of the committee headed by the then Jaipur divisional commissioner Kiran Soni Gupta, said the properties belonged to the state and they have the status of heritage buildings after a notification in 1974. The properties were taken over by the JMC after orders from the state government’s urban development and local self-government departments.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Rajasthan, the Congress had listed the transfer of ownership of the havelis among the illegal land deals which it would probe once in power. But the Congress lost badly in the 2013 election.

Amer Heritage City Construction Pvt Ltd, which later changed its name to Ananda Heritage Hotels, with Lalit Modi and his wife as directors, had purchased the two havelis.

“There is no doubt that the purchases were made using the influence of the chief minister, as the papers relating to the properties were not in order and there was no way  these properties could ordinarily have been registered in the state government’s record,” said Bina Kak, former archaeology and tourism minister.

The havelis were first evicted in the name of conservation and were then sold to a company in which Lalit Modi and his wife were directors.

In fact, families living in these havelis for generations have complained that the Raje government forced them to vacate their homes in the name of conservation and that the state archaeology department even sent notices to haveli owners asking them to vacate. The pressure tactic allowed both Modi and Kilachand to buy up the properties.

"We never wanted to sell our havelis; who would want to sell his home? But the government piled a lot of pressure on us saying that you have to vacate as these are heritage properties," said Bharat Singh, who claimed to own one of the havelis.
 
Under the Land Registration Act, the registrar needs to verify if any land being registered is actually owned by the government. But in this case, officials flouted that rule. 

The report by divisional commissioner Kiran Soni Gupta cites several discrepancies in the purchase of the havelis. Vikas Bhattacharya, a Bengali whose family was brought from Jessore, now in Bangladesh, by the ruler of Amer, Raja Man Singh, when he had gone to Bengal as the general of Emperor Akbar’s army, sold one portion of the Chhabron ki Haveli to Amer Heritage City Construction Pvt Ltd. This company later changed its name to Ananda Heritage Hotels. But Bhattacharya was not the owner of the haveli but an encroacher who had been residing in the property for the last five decades.

When Bhattacharya was asked to furnish the ownership documents, he declared that he wasn't the owner and that he had “acquired” the property in 1958. 

But he had been enjoying the property and even paid the municipal taxes relating to the property. In the historic city, people would recognise him as the owner of the property and even the state government notices were served under his name. Bhattacharya admitted he sold the property for Rs 9 lakh. 

But the properties were actually sold for Rs 20 lakh each, which is not even 10 per cent of the estimated market price. Also, the registrar didn't confirm the ownership history of the property before registering it in the name of the hospitality firm. Under the Land Registration Act, the registrar must verify if any land being registered is actually owned by the claimed owner. 

According to Archaeological Survey of India rules, no construction or modification can be done in a property that falls within 200 metres of a protected site. However, modification work in Bairathion ki Haveli, which is not even 50 metres from the protected Shri Jagat Singh Shiromani Mandir, was done by Kilachand.

The state government’s anti-corruption bureau had registered a case and submitted a report to the government in 2012 The ACB found that Amer Heritage City Construction Private Limited had acquired properties on government land, claiming that it was private. The sale was made possible as the concerned sub-registrar refused to accept the property was the government's.

The ACB’s FIR named state government’s director, archaeology and museums, B L Gupta, the sub-registrar and deputy director of the Amer Rural Development Authority and the owners, managers and employees of Amer Heritage City Construction Private limited.

Modi and Kilachand had planned to buy more such properties and build a heritage zone around the Amber fort and build heritage hotels on these properties. But as both of them fell out with Vasundhara Raje, and knowing well that the purchase of these havelis was not legal, the two former friends kept their silence.

The properties in question are today worth around Rs 100 crores.