Impound passport of the Ansal API developer: lawmakers' panel

The five-member lawmakers’ panel set up to probe anomalies in Sushant Golf City hi-tech township on Sultanpur Road has on home-buyers complaints found the developer guilty on various counts and recommended that his passport should be impounded, according to a member of the committee.

“I have submitted the report to the Vidhan Sabha speaker and recommended that the passport of Ansal API chairman Sushil Ansal should be impounded to prevent him from fleeing the country. I have also suggested that stringent action should also be taken against officials who connived and helped the realtor in abetting the fraud and cheating thousands of home-buyers,” said BJP MLA Vinod Katiyar, who headed the lawmakers’ panel. The developer has been accused of collecting crores of rupees from homebuyers without acquiring or buying land for the project. He has already been indicted by two earlier government probe panels.

The 15-page report also states that a public hearing of aggrieved Ansal API allottees and homebuyers should be convened at the earliest to resolve their problems. Indicting the developer on at least eight counts, the committee has said that the extension given to the township by the previous government should be revoked and no further development agreement should be signed till existing projects are completed.

In June, speaker Hridaya Narain Dixit had set up the probe panel after receiving more than 200 complaints against Ansal API, the state capital’s only hi-tech township spread over 6,500 acres.

Apart from selling land mortgaged to LDA and banks, the realtor also sold facilities earmarked for stadium and recreational activities in the township. The role of Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), which was made the nodal agency to oversee implementation of the project, has also come under the scanner for approving the layout of the township against norms.