Mumbai:
There is growing support for Rishi Raj Singh, the Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Mumbai, who's been taken off the Adarsh Society case and transferred to the Economic Offences Wing. Today, the Maharashtra wing of the BJP wrote to the Prime Minister and Home Minister, not to transfer the official.
The letter, signed by BJP leader Vinod Tawde, says that transferring the officer at a time when investigations are still on is inappropriate and it should be stopped.
Mr Singh's transfer orders came on Thursday; just one day after the CBI filed the chargesheet in the Adarsh Housing scam. And even though the chargesheet has been filed, the timing of the move is being questioned by many. The CBI is to file a supplementary chargesheet sometime before December this year. They are also investigating the real owners of the 24 benami flats in the building. The real beneficiaries, the investigating agency suspects are several politicians. Also being probed are the roles of former Maharashtra Chief Ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde and Vilasrao Deshmukh, who have not been named in the first chargesheet but have not yet been given a clean-chit
CBI sources say, the transfer is routine and had been sanctioned earlier. They say the agency was just waiting for the probe to be completed in the Adarsh case. Ten officers across the country have been shifted.
The CBI had on Wednesday filed its 10,000-page chargesheet which named former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan among 13 others including senior bureaucrats and retired defence personnel in the multi-crore Adarsh Housing Society scam. The chargesheet was filed before the Registrar of a sessions court, nearly 18 months after the investigating agency registered a case.
The CBI charged Mr Chavan with cheating, criminal conspiracy and for criminal conduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act, for recommending the allotment of 40 per cent of flats to civilians in what was supposed to be a society for Kargil war heroes and widows. The CBI alleged, as quid pro quo, three of Mr Chavan's relatives allegedly got flats in the society. Later, Mr Chavan also granted building concessions by changing the area's development plan.