Documents with The Indian Express show that the land allotment — the cancellation of which has pitted Mayawati against Congress president and Rae Bareli MP Sonia Gandhi — was cleared this May by then Principal Secretary (Revenue) Balwinder Kumar without the consent of the state cabinet which had only given in-principle approval for it a year earlier.

Mayawati learnt of the allotment just four days before Sonia Gandhi was to land in Rae Bareli for the bhoomi pujan at the project site on October 14. Furious that it had been done without cabinet approval, the Chief Minister pulled up senior bureaucrats and instructed that the allotment be cancelled. Balwinder Kumar was removed from his post on October 13.

The Central request for a rail coach factory at the site came in February 2007. On July 11, 2007, the Mayawati government gave in-principle approval to allot land for the factory.

Since the factory would require an additional 72 hectares of gram sabha land in Rae Bareli, Balwinder Kumar recorded in April, 2008 that the land transfer needed the approval of the state cabinet. But the very next month, Kumar made another jotting on the file that he had “erroneously” written that the land transfer matter be referred to the state cabinet. He noted there was no need to take state cabinet approval since the administration was empowered to take this decision. This was the green signal for allotment of land to the Railways.

When contacted, Balwinder Kumar admitted he had “erroneously recommended the matter to be taken before the cabinet which was not needed as resumption cases are sorted out at the level of district magistrate and commissioners”.