Press Trust Of India; New Delhi, November 03, 2010
Former Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, who has a flat allotted in the controversial Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai, had written to the Haryana Chief Minister seeking concessions on a plot of land given to him in Gurgaon for Rs 36 lakh.
Kapoor was allotted the 500-sqyds land in Gurgaon on the outskirts of the Capital in June 2009 at a cost of Rs 36 lakh, much less than the then prevailing market price.
According to the state government's reply to an RTI applicant, the preferential allotment, with a lock-in period of five years, was made out to him by Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) in recognition of his outstanding achievements.
On December 21, 2009, Kapoor wrote to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda requesting that the five-year lock-in condition be waived "because of my family compulsion," it said.
Kapoor retired as Army Chief on March 31 this year and on April 7 received a communication from the state government that his request had been rejected.
When asked about the issue, Hooda told reporters in Chandigarh, "There was a request from Kapoor. But the department said there is a pre-condition that nobody can sell the land before five years. Nobody can sell it like this."
Hooda and Kapoor are schoolmates from the Kunjpura Sainik School in Haryana and are close friends.
Kapoor's letter and Hooda's rejection of the request has come to light at a time when the former Army Chief's name figured in the list of allottees in the Adarsh Housing Society, which came up on a land near the Navy base in Mumbai's upscale Colaba area which was held by the Army since early 1940s.
After it came out that the Housing Society had promised to allot flats to Kargil widows and martyrs' families, Kapoor stated that he has surrendered the allotment made to him.
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