Aizawl: Former Mizoram chief minister and current state Congress president Lal Thanhawla has been acquitted in a criminal trial for having filed an incomplete election affidavit during the November 2013 assembly polls.
On 3 October, a local court in Serchhip town, Lal Thanhawla’s former bastion, allowed him the “benefit of doubt” over no evidence of mens rea for failing to mention in his election affidavit that he owned a plot of land in Kolkata. Mens rea is a legal term denoting the intention/knowledge of wrongdoing.
However, the court did find him as “the legal owner of the said plot of land”.
A five-time CM and nine-term MLA, Lal Thanhawla has been the Congress’ top leader in the state for four decades.
What the land issue is
In August 2013, Lal Thanhawla was allotted land in Kolkata’s New Town by West Bengal’s Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (WBHIDCO) for Rs 17 lakh, months ahead of the Mizoram assembly elections in which his party won 34 out of 40 seats.
The land was offered to him in early 2011 as part of a “chairman’s discretionary quota” exercised by then West Bengal housing minister Gautam Deb of the CPI(M), who was also chairman of WBHIDCO.
After the Mamata Banerjee government came to power later that year, it cancelled all the land allotments that were made after 28 February 2011. This cut-off date was later upheld by the Calcutta High Court which termed the “chairman’s discretionary quota” exercised by Deb to allot hundreds of plots to eminent personalities “most capricious, inequitable and feudal” and beyond “any fair procedure”.
The land allotment offer to Lal Thanhawla was made seven days before the cut-off date.
What the accuser said
The case against Lal Thanhawla was filed by Lalhriatrenga Chhangte, a former deputy director at the Indian Bureau of Mines and currently a state BJP leader.
Chhangte told the court he discovered Lal Thanhawla owned land in New Town in August 2017 and found out that a ‘Deed of Conveyance’ — a document that transfers the title, ownership, rights and interests in a property — had been signed before the 2013 Mizoram elections.
He said Lal Thanhawla’s omission, coupled with the former CM’s declaration of his age as 57 in 2003, 68 in 2008 and 71 in 2013 in three previous affidavits — his declared age in last year’s election affidavit is 80 — made him file a criminal complaint as advised by the Election Commission, which he initially approached.
What Lal Thanhawla told the court
According to Lal Thanhawla, he signed the ‘Deed of Conveyance’ for the land in August 2013.
However, Lal Thanhawla and his co-defence witnesses told the court they didn’t believe this made him the owner of the land yet since the necessary paperwork hadn’t been completed. Thus, he omitted mentioning it in his affidavit.
The defence witnesses included Lal Thanhawla himself, former Mizoram advocate general Biswajit Deb, Calcutta HC lawyer Sudip Kumar and Lal Thanhawla’s election agent in 2013, Lalnunmawia.
“I had consulted lawyers and an advocate general who referred me to Sudip Kumar, upon whose advice I had acted. I was informed that as mutation [changing title ownership] was not done yet, the said plot of land was not mine, hence, I did not mention it in my affidavit,” Lal Thanhawla told the court.
“I had spent about Rs 17 lacs for the said plot of land, while I had mentioned property worth crores of rupees in my affidavit, there is no reason for me not to mention a property worth only 17 lacs,” he said.
Separately, he is also recorded as having told the court earlier that “the non-disclosure of the said plot of land is neither wilful nor deliberate” and that “there can be no rational motive in not disclosing a property acquired” for Rs 17 lakhs when he “even disclosed a vehicle worth Rs 20 lacs”.
The photo his not that of Lal Thanhawla, but of his younger brother Lal Thanzara