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How IBN7 exposed the Adarsh Society scamIBN7 Updated Oct 30, 2010 at 12:46pm IST

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Mumbai: IBN7 was the first to expose the Adarsh Society scam.The channel broke the story as early as April 2 of this year. Hereis what came out in that report.

Mumbai's posh Colaba area land (about 3800 square meters)with the complicity of military officers was given to a privatehousing societiy. But army took no action in this regard becauseseveral army officials, including former army Chief DeepakKapoor himself, had flats in this society. IBN7 did the specialinvestigation on this.

This 27-storey building has been built in Mumbai's Colaba NavyNagar area. But no one knows how army gave the permission to

build a housing society on this land.The building was constructed at a place where there used to be Khukri

park, inaugurated by Field Marshal Cariappa. Since 2000 the army usedto maintain the park but after that some army officers attempted to grabthis land.


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Maharashtra Government Revenue Department issued an order in 2003,in which it was written that the government has decided to hand over this land occupied by the army to the housing society at a fixedgovernment rate.

However, it was not stated anywhere that the army-occupied land has been handed over to the housing society.

However, when IBN 7 tried to learn the details, the then RevenueMinister Shivaji Rao Patil Neanalngre said it is normal for the army tolend any piece of land to a housing society. Former Revenue Minister said in that particular respect where army gave the land to the housingsociety, no one raised any objection on the matter.

Adarsh Housing Society Mumbai

The Adarsh Housing Society is a cooperative society in the city of Mumbai in India . It was reserved for the war widows and veterans of theKargil War .

Corruption allegationsIn 2010, the Indian media brought to public the violations of rules atvarious phases of construction in the Adarsh Society. Questions wereraised on the manner in which apartments in the building were allocatedto bureaucrats, politicians and army personnel who had nothing to do


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with Kargil War and the way in which clearances were obtained for theconstruction of the building of the Adarsh Society. [1][2] The Adarshsociety high-rise was constructed in the posh Colaba locality of Mumbai ,which is considered a sensitive coastal area by the Indian Defence forcesand houses various Indian Defense establishments. [3] The society is alsoalleged to have violated the Indian environment ministry rules. [4] Manyactivists like Medha Patkar had been trying to uncover this scam since along time. [5] The exposure of the infamous nexus between politicians,

bureaucrats and builders in this scam is said to be only the tip of theiceberg. It had led to resignation of the then Chief Minister,Shri AsokhChavan. [6]

Several inquiries have been ordered by the army and the Government to probe into the irregularities. [7] Some of the current occupants of the flatsin the Adarsh co-operative society building have offered to vacate their flats at the earliest, denying allegations that they were alloted flats

because they influenced or helped, in some manner, the construction of the society by violating the rules. [8] The media also exposed that thelower house of the Indian Parliament was misled by one of the

bureaucrats, Pradeep Vyas , involved.

The environment minister Jairam Ramesh formally set the ball rollingfor the demolition of the entire 31-story scam-tainted Adarsh building inColoba's eco-sensitive zone on Friday November 12, 2010. Theenvironment minister is said to have sent a show cause notice to theAdarsh housing society. The environment minister is said to have statedthat "all options under the law are open except regularization of thestructure". [9] As per the Ministry of Environment and Forests' order dated 16 Jan 2011, 'the unauthorised structure should be removed in its

entirety and the area restored to its original condition'.[10]


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T he Hindustan T imesM UM BAI, November 2, 2010

Parliament was misled on Adarsh issue:MedhaSpecial Correspondent

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The Mumbai Collector had, in a letter to the Defence Estates Officer,Mumbai Circle, dated July 12, 2004, denied that the government of Maharashtra allotted any land to the Adarsh Cooperative HousingSociety in Colaba.

Records obtained using the Right to Information (RTI) Act by the National Alliance of Peoples' Movements (NAPM), which were releasedon Monday by Ms. Medha Patkar, Simpreet Singh and other activists,show that the Collector accorded permission to the Adarsh Society onJuly 9, 2004.

Ms. Patkar, who produced both these letters and other documents to prove irregularities in Adarsh, said that the Collector was responding toa letter from the Defence Estates Officer, Mumbai Circle, Colaba,regarding a starred question in the Lok Sabha on December 10, 2003.However, the NAPM did not clarify why the information was given after the date of the answer.

The Collector at that time was Pradeep Vyas. His wife Seema Vyas, alsoan IAS officer, owns a flat in Adarsh. Attempts to reach Mr. Vyas on hismobile phone were futile.

Ms. Patkar said that even Parliament was being misled by the Stategovernment. She wanted first information reports (FIRs) to be filed


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against all the offenders, including the promoters of the Society, under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Environment Protection Act.

Ms. Patkar said that P.V. Deshmukh, then Deputy Secretary, Urban

Development Department, in a letter of March 15, 2003, to the Chief Engineer, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, claimed that theSociety did get a no objection certificate (NOC) from the UnionMinistry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). The Ministry of Environment and Forests have communicated their no objection toallowing the said residential development since it falls within theCoastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) - 2 area which satisfied the norms of notification dated 19th February 1991 and amendments made therein up

to 21st May 2002. Now there appears therefore no objection to allowingresidential development to the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society onthe land included in residential zone as per the modifications sanctioned

by the government, said Mr. Deshmukh. However, it was clarified byMoEF last week that no NOC was issued to the Adarsh Society. Mr.Deshmukh is a flat owner in Adarsh.

On August 19, 1999, Dr. S.V. Joshi, then principal secretary in theUrban Development Department, wrote to the MoEF asking for an NOC

for Adarsh. The letter mentions that the members of the Society areofficers from the defence services who have dedicated their lives to theservice of Motherland and deserve all special consideration and severalmembers of the Society are even today fighting at Kargil andsurrounding areas. It is requested that considering the above mentionedfacts, the NOC for development of land under reference may beconsidered as a special case.

The NAPM, which had complained to the Maharashtra Coastal ZoneManagement Authority on August 29, 2008 demanding action againstAdarsh for violating environmental norms, has issued a letter to theauthority before its meeting on November 3. It has demanded thatAdarsh building be declared illegal and under the Environment


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Protection Act, the guilty officials and politicians and promoters prosecuted for illegal construction in a CRZ area.

L avasa project

Suniti S.R. of the NAPM pointed out that P.V. Deshmukh later becameCollector of Pune and gave permissions for the Lavasa project lands.Revenue Minister Narayan Rane last month admitted irregularities in theland acquired by Lavasa but all of them could be rectified by levyingheavy fines under various laws.

In 2001, Lavasa was notified as a hill station of 25,000 acres, of which12,316 acres was bought by the Corporation. About 141.15 hectares

from the Krishna Valley Development Corporation was given to Lavasaon a 30-year lease without government permission and this is one of theissues that will be regularised. Some 609 hectares of surplus land under the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961was bought by Lavasa unlawfully. It also bought 292 hectares of adivasiland, violating the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code which prohibits saleof such land.

Mr. Rane said that while the District Collector allowed the sale, he didnot seek permission from the government, which is mandatory. Of the292 hectares, about 102 hectares was legal. The rest had to beregularised.

Mr. Rane had given a month's time for the present Collector to submitreports on all these aspects. He also averred that action would be takenagainst the then Collector who had permitted these transactions without

proper permissions. These irregularities that were detected by the

Revenue Department could be rectified with retrospective effect.He declined to comment on the size of the fine the company would haveto pay to regularise the project. He said the Maharashtra Land RevenueCode, the Land Acquisition Act and other laws related to revenue andland would be adequate to impose a fine to rectify the irregularities.


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Didn t g ive e co cl e ara n ce

M anish Pachouly, Hindustan Times

Email Author

M umbai, November 09, 2010

First Published: 00:49 IST(9/11/2010)

Last Updated: 00:49 IST(9/11/2010)

Colaba s Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society is in more trouble. Thestate Environment Department has written to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) asserting that it did not give any clearances to thebuilding. The letter, written by Secretary (Department of Environment)Valsa Nair Singh and

handed over to the CBI last week, said the department never dealt withfiles pertaining to Adarsh.

Nair Singh confirmed that she had written the letter, but refused tocomment further.

The society has been accused of violating environmental norms and of getting the land on the promise that houses would be built for war

widows and veterans. However, most of the houses were allotted topoliticians, bureaucrats and Army and Navy commanders.


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The letter said some environment-related clearances were directlygiven by the state Urban Development Department (UDD) on its own.The letter added that the Environment Department came to know of

the clearances given by the UDD only after a non-governmentalorganisation (NGO) wrote to it in 2008.

TC Benjamin, principal secretary (UDD), said: I am not aware of anything.

A CBI officer requesting anonymity since he is not authorised to speakto the media said the letter claimed that the Environment Departmentwrote to the UDD seeking a clarification on the matter in February2010. Since there was no reply, it sent three reminders in April, Juneand October respectively following which the UDD replied inOctober-end.

The CBI now plans to write to the UDD asking how and why it gaveclearances that the Environment Department should have issued.

The CBI had last month written to various state government

departments, Adarsh, the Army and the Navy, seeking documentsrelated to the building and those who were allotted flats in it.


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The CBI has got all the documents from M umbai collector s office andsome of the documents from the Army and Navy. Adarsh, however, isyet to submit the documents it was asked for.

Last week, the CBI s M umbai office submitted a report on the probe toits national director Ashwani Kumar in New Delhi. In the report, the CBIapprised Kumar about how the investigation was progressing, thepapers it has received from various departments and the documentsstill awaited.

CBI officers said that the report submitted to the director is the firststep towards registering a first information report (FIR) in the case. Forregistering an FIR, we would need clearance from the director, theofficer said.


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M id D ay

' Adarsh housing controversy is just tip of the nexus iceberg '

T hat ' s what Medha Patkar,social activist and convener of the National Alliance of Peoples Movement, told SundayMid Day from Narmada in Gujarat, right after the CM submitted his resignation

This is just a tip of the iceberg of the nexus between the builder lobby, bureaucrats and politicians. Politicians and bureaucrats have beenaddressing the poor as 'illegal encroachers'. It will be interesting to seehow the UPA government, that pretends it doesn't support the builder lobby, handles this expose involving the IAS/defence officers and top

politicians. Aren't they illegal encroachers too?

The government, in 2006, had promised that Mandala in Mankhurd andAmbujwadi in Malad would be reserved for slum dwellers. However, ithas not kept its promise. The government planned to rehabilitate peopleliving on the banks of the Mithi River at Mankhurd after clearing thearea.

Back then, we had requested slight modifications in the DevelopmentPlan (DP) for constructing 3,500 homes for Mandala slum dwellers, whowere mostly construction workers. We even assured the BMC andMMRDA that the workers would construct homes for themselves bykeeping the builders away, yet they did not hear our plea. The irony isthat the proposed DP still remains unused.

I had informed former BMC commissioner Jairaj Phatak that our aimwas to expose the illegalities involving the bureaucrat-politician-builder nexus, but he didn't hear us out. Today, it is clear that Phatak hadviolated the norms to clear the grounds for Adarsh Housing Society; his

By: Vinod Kumar Menon Date: 2010-10-31 Place: Mumbai


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son (Kanishka Phatak) is one of the occupants.

Today 60 per cent of slum dwellers are living on 6 per cent of Mumbai'sland. More and more slum land is being re-distributed to builders,fictitiously called 'developers', to benefit the elite.

The question is, who owns the land? If it is development that theGovernment of Maharashtra is committed to, the land should not andcannot be unjustly distributed. While the government has cheated themiddle class and lower class under the banner of Nagari Niwara, slumdwellers are exposing the land grab.

The classic expose of a nexus between the builder lobby, ministers and bureaucrats is how Chief Minister Ashok Chavan had reduced the finewe had demanded from Hiranandani Constructions, from Rs 2,000 croreto Rs 200 crore, in 2009 for the Powai project. A petition is pending

before the Bombay High Court.

Pune Collector Prabhakar Deshmukh was non co-operative when wewanted his support to expose the Lavasa land scam. Interestingly, hisname too features in the list of Adarsh society's members!

Meet T he whistleblowers

Simpreet SinghRole: Filed R T I to army The 30 year-old postgraduate in social work, has been working withMedha Patkar since 2003. He is involved in Ghar Bachao Andolan, asocial movement for slum dwellers. According to Singh, the facts cameto light after he filed an RTI seeking information from the Collector,

Navy and Army related to allotment of land to Adarsh Society. Singhasked for the entire file pertaining to the society. "It took over four months to get access to the files, but once I had it, the file opened aPandora's box. The powerful bureaucrats violated the norms at every

point in the name of Kargil widows," he said.


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Santosh DaundkarRole: Filed R T I to BES T , BMC The 37 year-old is an independent RTI activist. He claims that former Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak had violated norms in the

Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) redevelopment project in favour of the builders. "I decided to gather evidence and expose Phatak," saysDaundkar, who filed an RTI to the BEST/BMC building proposal and tothe development planning section of the BMC. On the advice of hislawyer YP Singh, he became the petitioner in the Public InterestLitigation (PIL) filed in March 2010 highlighting the violations.

YP SinghRole: L awyer

The information gathered through the RTI was sufficient to expose thescandal for this retired IPS officer. "Ashok Chavan was the revenueminister when we laid our hands on the information. It was only after wefiled the PIL that the Army and Navy started raising objection on theconstruction of the building in a high risk defence area," said Singh.


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News National

New Delhi, November 1, 2010

Adarsh Society: Army setting up court of inquirySpecial Correspondent

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AP PANDORA'S BOX: A view of Adarsh Housing Society apartments in M umbai. The Defence M inistryand the Army is considering to take action against serving officers and ex-servicemen allegedly involvedin the housing scam.

RelatedNEWS

I have all the papers, says Chavan Accept Chavan's resignation, BJP demands Cong Pranab, Antony meetSonia; discuss Chavan Gadkari for dismissal of M aharashtra govt Housing scam: M aharashtra oppositionleaders meet Governor

TO PICS

M aharashtra M umbai crime, law and justice corruption & bribery inquiry defence armed Forces ex-servicemen

The Defence Ministry is awaiting a report from the Navy on Mumbai'sAdarsh Housing Society, even as the Army is planning to order a courtof inquiry into land ownership, membership and allotments. Defence

Minister A.K. Antony had asked the Army and the Directorate of Estates, besides the Navy, to probe the issue. In reports sent to theMinistry, it was established that the Army had had de-facto' control of the land at Colaba and evidence of a criminal conspiracy'' was detected.

The role of some officers who were with the Army and the DefenceEstates has come under scrutiny. These officers, sources in the Ministrysaid, would have to explain how and when the land, which was in de-facto possession of the Army, went to the housing society.

The Army is in the process of setting up a court of inquiry, to track andrecord the role played by its officers serving and retired thatallowed the society to construct the multi-storey structure.


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The Army was using the land for training purposes since the early1940s. In 1996, it opened an ecological park on the land and the MilitaryEngineering Service built a boundary wall. Troops in Mumbai wereholding their training sessions on the land till 1999, said the Army'sreport submitted to the Ministry. While the building issue was raisedearlier, the controversy re-surfaced after Western Naval Commander Vice Admiral Sanjeev Bhasin expressed concerns at security.

T he T imes of India

Adarsh put on notice, all 31 floors may berazed Nitin Sethi, TNN, Nov 13, 2010, 01.40am IST

ArticleComments

Tags: Jairam Ramesh |Adarsh housing scam

NEW DELHI: Environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday formallyset the ball rolling for demolition of the entire 31-storey scam-taintedAdarsh building in Colaba's eco-sensitive zone amid strong indicationsthat his ministry may actually decide on the extreme option after completing the procedural formalities.

The environment ministry has sent a showcause notice to the society,which is in the midst of a controversy, exposed by The Times of India ,over allotment of flats to top politicians, bureaucrats and armed forces

officers asking why the Centre should not demolish the building.

Over the past two weeks, this paper has in several reports said Adarshfaced demolition. Ramesh made his tough intent known by declaring``all options under the law are open except regularization of thestructure''.


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The ministry is of the view that the building, which has been built on the

back of a string of illegalities and without a no-objection certificate(NOC), would have to be razed to send an unambiguous signal of athorough clean-up in the aftermath of a scam which has already costformer chief minister Ashok Chavan his job.

The society has 15 days to respond as well as an additional week if it isto depute representatives to the environment ministry here to counter thecharge that the building came up without the green signal it was requiredto obtain under Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) rules of theEnvironment Protection Act.

The meeting of central officials with Maharashtra state governmentofficials on Thursday was perfunctory as the environment ministry's

National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) had alreadyconcluded that ``this (Adarsh) was a blatant case of violations, and theunauthorised structure of the society needs to be removed''.

The entire building is now expected to be brought down. Even if Adarshsociety officials had sought clearance before constructing the multi-storied building, they would been able to save only seven storeys.

The society had sought still more land apart from the plot on which thecurrent building stands. It had submitted a proposal to the stateauthorities which was finally blocked by the Centre as the society wasseeking conversion of yet another no-go area as a site of a new building-- again in the name of Kargil war victims' families.

The Maharashtra coastal management authority had recommendedAdarsh for an additional plot in 2005, suggesting this be converted fromCRZ I area (where no construction is permitted) to CRZ II ``becausemembers of the society are officers from the defence services anddedicated their lives for the nation in Kargil battle, as stronglyrecommended by the urban development department in August 1999''.


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The plan was nixed in the bud as the environment ministry did not findthe proposal in order. In the case of the building that has been built,Adarsh did not seek any clearance from the CRZ authorities. In 2009,the building did come under the scanner of the regional authority, whenan NGO -- the National Alliance of Peoples' Movement ^ filed acomplaint but the case was not pursued till TOI broke the story onOctober 25, 2010.

Adarsh Society scam: Deshmukh, Shinde, Rane are all in it tooPublished: Sunday, Oct 31, 2010, 3:13 ISTBy Rajshri Mehta | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

Chief Minister Ashok Chavans kith and kin are not the only beneficiaries of the scam involving allotment of flats in the Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society in Colaba. Three former CMs VilasraoDeshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde and Narayan Rane all of whom have

been, ironically enough, potential contenders for Chavans post and atsome point served as the sanctioning authority for the project, also standaccused of owning flats under benami names in Adarsh.

Deshmukh, who is currently the union minister for heavy industries,reportedly owns three apartments each one a 3-BHK of 1,076 sq ft

carpet area on the 15th floor. The flats (1502, 1503 and 1504) are inthe names of Uttam Ghakare, Kiran Bhadange and Amol Kharbari real or fictitious individuals whose relationship with Deshmukh is notclear.

Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is said to own a 3-BHK flat


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in the name of Major NW Khankhoje, while former state revenueminister Shivajirao Patil Nilengakar allegedly owns two flats in thename of Dr Arun V Dawle and Sampat R Khidse (flat no 2602).

The Adarsh gravy train has more members on board: Maharashtrarevenue minister Narayan Rane too is accused of owning two 3-BHK flats on the 17th floor, in the name of Girish Pravinchandra Mehta andRupali

Harishchandra Raorane. Also, Archana Tiwari, a doctor with BombayHospital, reportedly got a flat in Adarsh by virtue of being a good friendof Ratnakar Gaikwad, commissioner of Mumbai Metropolitan Regional

Development Authority (MMRDA).The project had been approved by Chavan himself in 2002 when he wasthe revenue minister. Deshmukh, as the then CM, had given the initial

permissions for the construction of Adarsh Society, while Shinde, whenhe was the CM in 2004, gave the final sanction for the project.

When contacted, Deshmukh denied the allegations. None of myrelatives or party workers or friends own a flat in the society, he said.

Rane told DNA , I only facilitated the treatment of two defense officialsas special cases, as they did not have domicile of 15 years inMaharashtra. Their cases were taken up before the cabinet for approval.

Nilangekar and Shinde were unavailable for comment.

Set up supposedly with the aim of accommodating and rewarding theheroes of the Kargil operation and those who had laid down their livesfor the protection of the motherland, if one looks at the initial list of society members of the Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society, itcomprised 40 members and included mostly defence personnel. Now thelist stands at 103, out of which only 37 members belong to the army andust three members have anything to do with the Kargil war.

Meanwhile, two of Chavans relatives who had been allotted flats inAdarsh, his sister-in-law Seema Sharma and brother-in-law Madanlal


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Sharma, resigned from the society on Friday. Chavans mother-in-lawBhagwati Sharma was also a member of the society, but she passedaway earlier this year.

T he Adarsh hall of shame Some of the bureaucrats and politicians who are accused of fraudulentlyobtaining flats for themselves or their relatives:Ashok Chavan, chief minister, Maharashtra Jairaj Phatak, ex-municipalcommissioner (flat in the name of his son Kanishka J Phatak) RamanandTiwari, state information commissioner (in the name of son, Onkar Tiwari) Suresh Prabhu, Shiv Sena (own name) Pradeep Vyas, ex-collector, Mumbai ( in the name of his wife and fellow IAS officer

Seema Vyas) Jitender Awhad, NCP (own name) Indris Kundan, ex-ollector, Mumbai (own name)Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, Congress (along with 2 sons, Kailash and Amit)Uttam Khobragade, BEST GM (in the name of daughter, Devyani, anIndian Foreign Service official) Babasaheb Kupekar, Congress (ownname) DK Sankaran, Ex-chief secretary (in the name of daughter,Devyani) Shriniwas Patil, NCP (own name)CS Sangitrao, ex-collector, suburban (in the name of son, Ranjit

Krishnarao Patil, Congress SC Deshmukh, Collector, Pune (own name)Arun Pawar, ex-income tax commissioner (own name)PV Deshmukh, secretary, urban development (own name).


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Adarsh Society scam: How Maharashtragovernment cashed in on Kargil

NDTV Correspondent , Updated: November 03, 2010 15:15 IST

Mu mba i: The land on which M umbai's controversial Adarsh Housing Society came up may not officiallyhave been allotted for Kargil heroes, but the fact remains that the M aharashtra government itself usedreferences to Kargil heroes to lobby for clearances from the Centre.


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NDTV is in possession of correspondence between the PrincipalSecretary to the government of M aharashtra, S V Joshi, and UnionM inistry of Environment and Forests, seeking environmental clearances

for the society.

In a letter dated August 19, 1999 to the M inistry of Environment andForests, the government of M aharashtra had mentioned Kargil heroes.It was in 1999 when for the very first time, the proposal for this housingsociety came up.

Here's what the letter says:

'The housing society has members who are defence personnel and havededicated their life to the service of the motherland and deserve allspecial consideration. Several members even today are fighting at Kargiland surrounding areas. It is requested that considering the abovementioned facts, the NoC for development of the land under reference

may be considered as a special case.'

28 Oct, 2010, 12.00P M IST,AGENCIES

Adarsh Society scam gets murkier; CM ' s

mom-in-law in listMUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has soughtinformation on the row over the allotment of a prime plot of land toAdarsh Co-operative Housing Society but it has now emerged that themembers include his late mother-in-law Bhagwati Manoharlal Sharma.


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Chavan was unavailable for comment. The name of Sharma, who died inJuly here, appears in the official list submitted by the society whose

beneficiaries include former services chiefs, politicians and bureaucrats.

Bhagwati Manoharlal Sharma, 77, passed away at 'Varsha', the Chief Minister's official residence in July.

A controversy has erupted over how the Adarsh society in Colaba,originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil war heroesand widows, got converted into a 31-storey tower through collusion of

bureaucrats, politicians and top defence officers.

The highrise is built on 6,450 sq metres within the Colaba naval area andwas cleared on the condition of housing war veterans but now has 104members including senior army commanders, a former environmentminister, legislators and state bureaucrats.

Former chief secretary D K Sankaran's son, Sanjoy, is among theallottees.

Mumbai collector Chandrashekhar Oke, who was asked to submit acomprehensive report on the status of the building land, has submitted a

preliminary report which will help resolve the issue of whether the land belongs to the defence or the state revenue department.

aadarsh socity

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