The NDMC had on Thursday cancelled the license of the five-star hotel over non-payment of dues amounting to Rs 518 crore
Slamming the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) for dragging his name in to the Le Méridien controversy, the body's former Chairman Jalaj Shrivastav has written a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other members of the civic body. The council members have accused Shrivastav for allowing the five-star hotel to settle dues after violating norms.
The NDMC had on Thursday cancelled the license of the five-star hotel over non-payment of dues amounting to Rs 518 crore. The luxury hotel's license fee has been a bone of contention for long, with allegations of irregularities against the civic body in recovery of this fee.
The NDMC officials have alleged that the council, headed by the then Chairman Shrivastav, allowed the hotel to settle by accepting a one-time fee of over Rs 180 crore, resulting in a loss of Rs 400 crore to the exchequer.
In a letter dated March 3, 2017, Shrivastav, who is now serving as the Additional Secretary in the Agriculture Ministry, said he was being falsely implicated by the council members and they have also "utterly misled" and "duped" the meeting.
Speaking to DNA, Shrivastav said: "I intend to proceed for defamation and perjury against the officials responsible. If the council members do not delete the offensive paragraph, all of them will also be liable for wrong." He termed the Agenda Note for the council, "a tissue of lies" and urged Kejriwal to go through the previous notings and pass a resolution to delete "lies and distortions regarding his conduct".
Clarifying his stance on the amount taken for settlement, Shrivastav said while serving as the Chairman, in a two-page letter, he had directed the council officials to apprise the High Court that "the NDMC accepting the cheques from the hotel did, under no circumstances, constitute an agreement or compromise, but only an undisputed portion of the dues, which would be settled and decided by the court in due course".
He said there was a "major communication gap when the High Court misunderstood this as settlement and decreed accordingly", following which he filed a rectificatory petition to correctly place the council's stance.
Shrivastav also alleged that the KK Pathak Committee, which was formed to address the complaint regarding Le Méridien Hotel neither took his version nor did the basic due diligence of looking at the NDMC file. In fact, the report itself states that the civic body did not show them the subject files, he claimed.
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