Chandigarh, January 13
The Chandigarh Administration is likely to face some tough questions from the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) for allotting the contract for the controversial Rs 191 crore Film City project to Parsvnath Film City Limited (PFCL) as it now turns out that the company did not even fulfil the technical parameters laid down by the administration.

As reported by The Tribune on Sunday, while the negotiations for the construction of the project were conducted by Parsvnath Developers Limited (PDL), the contract was mysteriously signed with its subsidiary, PFCL, which was incorporated, with a paid up capital of merely Rs 5 lakh, two days before the finalisation of the deal on March 2, 2007. And now it has come to light that contrary to the laid-down provisions that the project developer should have on its board/panel experts from the multimedia and film- making field, PFCL had none on the day of signing of the contract.

The Expression of Interest (EoI) and technical bids of the PDL had earlier been accepted by the administration on the grounds that it had Real Good Films, a company promoted by cine star and producer, Satish Kaushik, as a partner. Similarly M/s Digital Academy and Maya Entertainment were shown as two partners by Parsvnath for its educational institute project in the Film City. These three companies reportedly have no role, whatsoever, either in PDL or PFCL.

Documents pertaining to the EoI approved by the administration on May 16, 2006 (available with The Tribune) reveal that PDL had shown Satish Kaushik’s “promoted” Real Good Films both as a “board/panel member” and as a “tie-up”. In fact Kaushik had come down to Chandigarh later to give a “technical” presentation to the administration.

According to an interesting revelation by RTI activist Hemant Goswami, who has procured over 1,000 pages of documents pertaining to the project under the Act, Ksuahik’s promoted company, Real Good Films Pvt. Ltd, was incorporated on February 2, 2007, almost nine months after the EoI was approved. The company was registered by the Registrar of Companies, Mumbai, with three directors on its board and having a share capital of one lakh only.

Goswami said neither Kaushik nor his company has a single share in PFCL or PDL and they also do not hold any positions there. Besides Kaushik has never ever received any consultation amount from any of the Parsvnath companies, he added.

Goswami said PDL had furnished wrong information to the administration, which, for reasons best known to it, accepted their bid without ve ification of facts and in the process rejected several other deserving companies.

Kaushik admitted that he had never received any money from Parsvnath and said that despite verbal assurances, he had not been allotted any shares in PDL nor appointed a director in it. As for Real Good Films, he said it was a partnership company when PDL submitted the EoI. He however, expressed ignorance about the date of incorporation of the company as a Private Ltd firm and claimed that he had left all the paperwork to PDL.

Accusing the PDL of “befooling” him and “betraying his trust” by keeping him in the dark about the developments relating to the project after it was short-listed, Kaushik said even he was surprised when he realised that he had no role in PFCL. “They have used me and now I realise that it was always a real estate project for them and they had no interest in Film City,” he said, adding that, if required, he would apprise the CVC about how Parsvnath had gone about getting the project.

Goswami alleged that the hasty clearance of the project and these fresh revelations indicated that the city’s bosses in league with the property developers were playing a fraud on the public. “All this is nothing more than a lucrative real-estate deal, camouflaged in the name of Film City or such projects,” he said.