Gujarat Congress demands removal of top executive of Ahmedabad metro project

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Congress on Tuesday demanded removal of top executive of Gandhinagar-Ahmedabad Metro Rail Project Sanjay Gupta, saying he was declared as "defaulter" in his capacity as the promoter of Neesa Leisure Ltd by the Industrial Finance Corporation of India.

" IFCI has published a public notice today and has declared Sanjay Gupta, Executive Chairman of Metro Rail project, as defaulter in the recovery of Rs 32 crore. The ruling BJP government should immediately remove such a tainted, controversial and defaulter person from Rs 15,000 crore metro rail project," state unit Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said in a statement.

Citing the content of the notice, published in some of the local dailies by IFCI, he alleged that, "at the time when BJP government in Gujarat has begun advertising this project in a big way, person who is holding the pivotal responsibility in the project getting embroiled in a controversy is very serious matter".

Dismissing the allegations, Gupta termed the IFCI notice as an "irresponsible" act. "IFCI has filed an application in Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT), Ahmedabad, u/s 19 of RDB Act 1993, with the original application No.18 of 2013, against M/s Neesa Leisure Ltd.

"...Subsequently, IFCI has issued a public notice in news dailies informing the people about the order of restraint from transferring, selling, disposing of different properties of the company which was absolutely unnecessary and redundant. The advertisement itself says that the properties described in the same are mortgaged/hypothecated or pledged," Gupta said in a statement.

Gupta accused IFCI of "deliberately suppressing the material facts and latest developments with respect to the CDR (corporate debt restructuring) scheme wherein all the lenders participated, except IFCI, and subsequently CDR package has been approved by Empowered Group of CDR."

He said the motive behind issuing the notice was to defame him. "The intention to defame is conspicuous from the very fact that the public notice fore-runs even the service of order of DRT," Gupta alleged.