30 July,2009 09:05 AM IST | | BV Shiva Shankar
Congress bigwig and ex-minister allegedly sold YMCA land in an attempt to make a fortune
BUT THERE'S MORE
Top Congress leader J Alexander allegedly hoodwinked the YMCA and sold its land to pocket some crores when he was its president.
A former board member of Young Men's Christian Association has registered a complaint with the Ulsoor Gate police, alleging that office-bearers led by Alexander had cheated the organisation.
Alexander is a former minister and president of the Bangalore city unit of the Congress.
Emerson Samuel, the complainant, told MiD DAY, "There are several irregularities in the deal, and they have tried to siphon off at least Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore."
Double cross?
He said Alexander had sold property worth about Rs 15 crore to Gopalan Enterprises, but made the YMCA believe the deal was worth only Rs 9.3 crore.
It all began when the YMCA board resolved to sell 15 acres near Kumbalagod, on the outskirts of Bangalore, to Gopalan Enterprises, a land developer and promoter of shopping malls.
Undervalued
The rate was fixed at Rs 62 lakh an acre, when the market value was Rs 1 crore. Alexander was allegedly responsible for the undervaluation of the land.
Sameul alleges Alexander had a vested interest in the deal. He had accepted Rs 93 lakh as advance on July 27, 2006, a good three days before the YMCA passed the resolution to sell the land.
The resolution said the land should be sold for Rs 9.3 crore, but the amount first collected was Rs 4.65 crore.
Samuel says Alexander eventually collected the full Rs 9.3 crore, but by selling land that was to be used commonly by the YMCA and Gopalan Enterprises.
In effect, Alexander gave the buyer land not meant to be sold. Samuel suspects Alexander tried to pocket the rest of the money.
"The additional land was meant for a common passage for Gopalan Enterprises and YMCA," said a source in the YMCA.
The complaint says YMCA general secretary Ratnakumar and treasurer P Sethu helped Alexander in the manipulation.
C Shreedharan, partner, Goplan Enterprises, is known to be a close friend of Alexander.
Deed is done
Once the deal was discussed, Phillip Lewis, vice president, chaired the board meeting, as Alexander was absent. The meeting authorised Lewis to scrutinise the sale deed, but that was not to be.
"Nobody gave me the sale deed... Apparently there was a scam, but I could not make out what had happened," he said.
A new board was constituted on March 31, 2008.
It found that Gopalan Enterprises had handed Rs 5 crore to YMCA on January 29, 2008, just three months before Alexander's term ended.
The board then discovered, to its shock, that a pay order for Rs 5 crore had been split in two and remitted in two fixed deposit accounts at two branches of Vijaya Bank.
YMCA has its official accounts in Corporation Bank, Andhra Bank, and Syndicate Bank.
Samuel wanted to know why the pay order was kept for three months, split, and put in Vijaya Bank, that too just a week before the new board took charge.
MiD DAY tried repeatedly to contact Alexander but his phone was switched off.
Police take
C S Anand, inspector, Ulsoor Gate police station, said he had called for more documents, and would investigate only if convinced that the complainant had a case.
The sofa scam
J Alexander is a player in many scams. MiD DAY had reported last year that he took home government furniture worth Rs 5 lakh five years earlier and was in no hurry to return it.
He had kept for himself sofas, cots and tables belonging to the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB). He had to return them after his two-year term as chairman ended in 2004. He still hasn't returned the furniture.
Alexander, an IAS officer who gravitated to politics, was tourism minister in S M Krishna's cabinet before moving to the Pollution Board.
He was accused No 1 in what came to be known as the Classic Computers scam. As chief secretary, he had allegedly paid inflated rates for Apple computers supplied by a vendor called Classic Computers. Then chief minister S Bangarappa was also accused, but both were acquitted after a long trial.
