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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Adarsh housing scam: 2 IAS officers held, heat is up on 3 ex-CMs-Rajshri Mehta

Adarsh housing scam: 2 IAS officers held, heat is up on 3 ex-CMs-Rajshri Mehta

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published Published on Apr 4, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 4, 2012

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested two senior bureaucrats-former Mumbai civic chief Jairaj Phatak and former Maharashtra information commissioner Ramanand Tiwari-in connection with the Adarsh housing society scam, taking the tally of people taken into custody to nine. The central agency has listed 14 people, including former chief minister Ashok Chavan, as accused in its first information report filed last January.

Interrogations of two of the society's arrested promoters, sources said, have revealed that two other ex-Maharashtra CMs were offered four or five of the total 30 benami flats in the building. But before the transfer could take place, the scam was exposed. Investigating agencies say many of the approximate 30 benami flats in the Colaba high-rise belong to politicians, bureaucrats and army men.

When Phatak and Tiwari were summoned for questioning to the CBI's headquarters at Tanna House at 9.30am, the two bureaucrats seemed scarcely surprised. Sources said that Phatak asked the agency's sleuths whether he should have brought along his clothes, while Tiwari accepted the offer to break for lunch. The two bureaucrats' questioning went on for seven hours before they were formally arrested at 6pm.

Phatak was till recently the secretary of the statutory development board for the rest of Maharashtra. He was suspended on March 23 for alleged involvement in the Adarsh scam. He has been accused of allowing the building to rise to over 100 metres as Mumbai's civic chief without, as per the rules, showing the proposal first to the state high-rise committee. His son is a member of the society.

Tiwari was the state information commissioner when he was suspended by the government in January 2011, again for alleged involvement in the scam. According to the CBI FIR, as principal secretary in the urban development department, Tiwari conspired to transfer FSI from the adjacent BEST land to Adarsh so that the building's height could be increased to 103.6 metres. His son too has an apartment in Adarsh.

Maj Gen (retd) T K Kaul, general officer commanding (GOC) of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa area, is allegedly among those who own many flats-three, according to arguments made by the CBI in court-in the Colaba high-rise. Besides an apartment in his name, Kaul allegedly acquired a flat each in the name of his grandniece and his former ADC, Captain A P Singh. Kaul was arrested on March 20.

Kaul's predecessor, former GOC Maj Gen (retd) A R Kumar, meanwhile, has ostensibly admitted making a mistake in granting a No-Objection Certificate that paved the way for the land's allotment to the society. He said he was misled because the plot was not formally recorded in the military's land records, sources said. That is the reason he trusted R C Thakur, a former employee of the Defence Estates Office, when the latter claimed that the plot belonged to the state. According to sources, Kumar expressed regret, saying that he would not have granted the NOC had he known that the issue would become so serious.

The Times of India, 4 April, 2012, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Adarsh-housing-scam-2-IAS-officers-held-heat-is-up-on-3-ex-CMs/articleshow/12524810.cms


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