Mumbai:
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two senior Maharashtra bureaucrats, former IAS officer Jairaj Phatak and Retired Information Commissioner Ramanand Tiwari in connection with the multi-crore Adarsh housing scam in Mumbai.
As municipal commissioner in 2010, Mr Phatak is alleged to have allowed the height of the building in upmarket Colaba to be raised beyond 100 metres without the approval of the High-Rise Committee of the municipal body. His son Kanishk Phatak received a flat in the Adarsh Society building, allegedly as quid pro quo. Mr Phatak was suspended by the state government last month.
Retired Information Commissioner Ramanand Tiwari, as former urban development secretary allegedly allotted land and building rights to the Adarsh Society.
The scam broke in 2010 when it was discovered that an illegal 104-apartment society had come up on one of the costliest real estate stretches in South Mumbai. Flats in the Adarsh housing society in the Colaba area had been cornered at very high prices.
The society was originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil War heroes and their relatives, but was later extended to 31 floors allegedly without mandatory permission. Investigations suggest that politicians, retired Army officers and senior bureaucrats colluded to corner flats in the building.
The scam cost then-Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan his job. Three of his relatives were allotted flats in the high-rise. He was replaced by Prithviraj Chavan. Union Ministers Sushilkumar Shinde and Vilasrao Deshmukh, who are both former Maharashtra Chief Ministers, are also under the scanner.
Other high-profile people who were sacked due to the scam were State Information Commissioner Ramanand Tiwari and Member of State Human Rights Commission Subhash Lalla. They all allegedly played a role in granting illegal clearances to the Adarsh society and in return got flats in their relatives' names, according to reports.
The seven people arrested by the CBI so far are - Pradeep Vyas, a serving bureaucrat in the Maharashtra government; Major General (Retd) T K Kaul; Major General (Retd) A R Kumar; Brigadier (Retd) MM Wanchoo; RC Thakur, a retired defence estates officer; PV Deshmukh, a former Deputy Secretary in the Urban Department and Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, a former Congress MLC.