BHOPAL, NOV 9: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has laid bare the bureaucrat-liquor mafia nexus in the state during a recent judgement involving liquor auctions in Sehore district.So agitated was the court at the manner in which highly placed officials apparently bent rules to accommodate their favourites that it has issued contempt notices to the then district collector and state excise commissioner and asked the state government to hold a departmental inquiry against Madhya Pradesh Revenue Board Chairman H.G. Oberoi himself for the uncalled-for interference in the auction.The court has held these officials guilty of gross irregularities and partisanship in the auction of liquor shops in Sehore in March this year, causing the state exchequer a loss of over Rs 1 crore and ordered a fresh auction, which will be held tomorrow.The controversy which has caused ripples in bureaucratic circles here started on Mach 8 this year when the Sehore group of liquor shops was to be auctioned. Senior state officialsreportedly deliberately and against rules prevented other bidders from participating in the auction in order to favour a liquor mafia. Representatives of the rival bidding group, Harish and Dilip Kumar Shivahare, were arrested by the Sehore police in connection with another criminal case the moment they reached the auction site after submitting a security deposit of Rs 45 lakh.The Shivahare brothers protested to the state excise commissioner as well as Chief Minister Digvijay Singh alleging that their arrest was a conspiracy to prevent them from participating in the auction. They also pointed out that while the ``manipulated'' auction of March 8 had netted only Rs 10.36 crore, they were prepared to bid up to Rs 11.31 crore for the same group of shops.The excise commissioner then asked the aggrieved party to deposit a banker's cheque of Rs 1.5 crore along with a sworn affidavit and ordered re-auction of the shops on March 31.Later, when both the Shivahare brothers and the original auction holders tookthe matter to the high court, the state government gave an undertaking that the shops would not be handed over to any of the two contending parties after April 1 and the government would itself run them till the dispute was resolved by the court.Meanwhile, Revenue Board Chairman Oberoi visited Sehore on March 27 and issued an order cancelling the fresh auctions ordered by the excise commissioner on March 31 on the ground that the shops were ``legally auctioned'' on March 8. He withdrew his diktat only after the collector rushed to Gwalior to tell him with the facts of the case.Ironically, in the fresh auction held on March 31, the state officials again rejected Shivahare brothers' offer on technical grounds and gave the licences to the same trader who had been chosen on March 8 on the same conditions.While delivering its judgement on the two contending petitions filed by the Shivahare brothers and the original beneficiary, the Madhya Pradesh High Court found that there seemed enough evidence tosuggest a complicity between the officials and the ``favoured'' trader.The court found the Revenue Board chairman's intervention a ``blatant effort'' to postpone the fresh auction to be held on March 31 on the orders of the excise commissioner.Taking strong objection to the way in which such a senior official tried to meddle in the matter ``without any justification'', the court has asked the state government to hold an inquiry against him and decide within three months whether such a person was fit to hold the senior position he occupied. It has also asked the government to report to the court about the action taken against the official after holding a departmental inquiry.As for the award of the licence to the same trader in the auction held on March 31, the court has asked the then collector and excise commissioner to appear in the court personally on November 15 to explain why contempt proceedings against them should not be started.
