Air India scraps Srinagar Centaur deal with 2G scamster Balwa
08 Apr 2011
New Delhi/Srinagar: Air India has decided to nullify a controversial deal involving arrested scamster Shahid Balwa's hotel chain and the Air India-owned Hotel Corporation of India (HCI), which would have provided Balwa management rights over Srinagar's Centaur Hotel.
The hotel is located on the banks of the scenic Dal Lake.
The Hotel Corporation of India Ltd (HCI) is a public limited company wholly owned by Air India.
Balwa's DB Realty group's subsidiary BD & P Hotels (India) Pvt Ltd had entered into a 30-year agreement with HCI last September to manage the hotel. The state government had protested to then civil aviation minister Praful Patel and urged him to stop the deal.
Interestingly, Patel is a minister in the incumbent UPA government at the centre, and belongs to the Nationalist Congress Party, a UPA constituent which is headed by Sharad Pawar. Pawar is now in the news for having business links and partaking favours from Balwa, charges which he has denied.
Earlier, in February, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court stayed the deal after a group of lawyers filed a public interest litigation.
