Babus must get ready to face the music again while politicians are being let off, this time on the Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai. Buckling under pressure from the Congress high command, particularly from party vice president Rahul Gandhi in his new anti-corruption avatar, the Maharashtra cabinet under Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan today reviewed the action taken report on the Adarsh Housing Society scam which it had rejected last month.
"No action against politicians accused of patronage in the Adarsh Housing Society scam. There will be no action against the four former chief ministers and Nationalist Congress Party leaders Rajesh Tope and Sunil Tatkare," Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan told reporters in Mumbai. "There was no instance of criminality found against the politicians," Chavan said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. Image courtesy PIB
"On the Adarsh society, we reviewed the entire report once again of the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society. In our meeting in Nagpur, we had rejected the Adarsh report on 20 December. There were 13 terms of reference given to this action taken report. The first two terms of reference were looked at in April 2013 and the remaining 11 terms of reference and the findings of the committee which was appointed was given to us last month. We discussed the entire issue once again and it was decided that we take different decisions," the chief minister said.
Going into the depth of the issue, he said, "The first issue was who did the land belong to? Did it belong to the state government or was it the defence ministry's land? We have referred this to the Central government and mentioned that the land belonged to the state government. "
Giving more details of the cabinet discussion on the issue of land, the chief minister said, "Was the land preserved for a particular purpose and was the land de-reserved as a result and were there any environmental regulations flouted. We had to decide what actions are to be taken against officials, politicians and public figures involved of the ministries of urban development and environment and natural resources."
Pressing for an inquiry into the scam, he said, "There should be an inquiry done on all of these issues. The action taken report had also looked into whether the necessary permissions were taken. The action taken report suggested that necessary permissions of from the Central environment ministry were not taken."
Referring to the conclusion adopted by the action taken report, Chavan said, "The action taken report suggested that this was an unauthorised and irregular structure and this should be demolished. The report suggested that the manner in which the land was acquired and the building was built was completely irregular and unauthorised.
"These irregularities need to be probed. The officials of the Ministry of Urban Development as well as the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources who had given these permissions needed to look at. The action taken report also spoke of public servants who had taken unfair advantage of their position who had bought properties in adarsh as a result."
The chief minister said that the CBI is at present looking into the 22 benami flats that were mentioned in the action taken report and how these flats were acquired.
"The CBI is also enquiring if this case has an element of quid pro pro in it," Chavan said.
The action taken report had indicted four former chief ministers including Ashok Chavan, now demised Vilasrao Deshmukh, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil. Two former urban development ministers Tope and Tatkare and 12 top bureaucrats were also indicted.
As per the action taken report, among the society's 102 members, 25 were not eligible including diplomat Devyani Khobragade who was in the news recently for alleged visa fraud and consequent arrest in the US.
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