Expressindia.com:Monday, February 06, 2012.
Mumbai: One year since the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), after being rapped by the Bombay High Court, registered an FIR against 14 people in the multi-crore Adarsh co-operative housing society scam on January 29, the agency has recorded statements of over a 100 witnesses, interrogated the accused, and has compiled evidence running into several thousand pages. However, while no accused has been arrested yet, a chargesheet also appears to be several months away.
Although the agency maintains it has been on the right track and has shown enough progress in the investigations, there has not been any arrest in the case. “We have questioned all the 14 accused and several other witnesses have been examined. As the scam involves multiple departments and irregularities shown on their part in dealing with the files, it is a painstaking job for us,” said a senior CBI officer. Asked about the progress in the case, CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said, “Investigation is nearing completion. There is no delay on our part.”
According to the FIR, former chief minister Ashok Chavan, during his tenure as Revenue Minister (2001-03), entered into a criminal conspiracy along with the society’s chief promoter R S Thakur, retired Army officials R S Thakur, M M Wanchoo, senior IAS officer Jairaj Phatak and former MLC Kaniyalal Gidwani by proposing to pass a letter recommending inclusion of civilians in the Adarsh society, which was initially meant for Kargil war widows and victims. This inclusion was ensured by allegedly bypassing several rules.
The FIR states that the accused of criminal conspiracy, “the public servants concerned abused their official position, manipulated and fabricated the records to achieve their objective of getting the land allotted in favour of Adarsh society in an illegal manner and also got various clearances from the municipal authorities and other state government authorities in an illegal manner”. However, a year later, the agency claims there is not enough evidence to arrest any one yet. “We will do it when the need arises. The need has not arisen yet,” said one of the senior CBI officers handling the investigations.
The CBI, which was handed over the probe by the Defence Ministry, named besides Chavan two other Union Ministers in the FIR Sushil Kumar Shinde and Vilasrao Deshmukh who allegedly ensured that the society’s proposal was passed. Although Shinde has been questioned by the CBI, the interim progress report filed before the HC gives him a clean chit, claiming no culpability could be made out against him.
“It is unfortunate that even today no administrative action has been taken against any accused. Chavan was sacked, just as an attempt to save face. But since then, neither the state government nor the Centre have done anything,” said activist Simpreet Singh, one of the petitioners who through a series of RTI applications brought out several irregularities in this 31-storey building in Cuffe Parade.
The CBI also began parallel investigations into the documents that went missing from the UD Department. Four pages relating to the reduction of the width of Capt Prakash Pethe Marg, the allotment of additional building rights and environmental clearances were found missing from the UDD office in October 2010. On November 1, 2010, the pages reappeared but without the note sheet.
While the CBI arrested three junior-level employees in May, last year they were released on bail as the agency failed to file a chargesheet within the mandatory 60 days. The agency since then has told the HC twice that it will soon file a chargesheet but sources say the case has shown very little progress.
“We’ve been finding it difficult to attribute roles to each accused. They shifted files but it is yet to be ascertained if they really had an idea of what those files were,” said a CBI source. All accused UDD desk officer Gurudatt Wajpe, assistant town planner N N Narvekar and Waman Rawool, the then clerk to UDD principal secretary have been suspended since then. “It has been over six months and we are still awaiting a chargesheet,” said Narvekar’s lawyer Satyavrat Joshi.
There were four instances of documents going missing and one case of a hard drive going missing. The UDD, the Union ministry of Environment and Forests, the local Army headquarters and the state town planning department all saw papers vanish. While the CBI arrested three junior-level employees in the UDD case, the other cases are not being investigated.
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