Adarsh land belongs to Army: Gen VK Singh

Army Chief Gen VK Singh on Monday said the land in south Mumbai on which the scam-tainted Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society stands belonged to the Army.

He also said the judicial commission, which has drawn a contrary conclusion, was not "a court". "Commission ko koi manyata nahi hai (The commission has no standing)...That had been appointed by the state, for its own information. So, we need not take its finding seriously," he said.

"Orders to demolish the structure (building) have already been given...now the onus is on you (media) to ensure that the building is demolished," Gen Singh said during an interaction with the reporters after a book release function here.

"The judicial commission has also said that it was not giving a judgment, it was merely a fact-finding report. Whatever documents we had given had not been considered seriously...," Singh said, in reply to a question.

The Adarsh controversy had erupted with newspaper reports which alleged that the land belonging to the Defence Ministry had been given away by the state for the Society where top bureaucrats and politicians had got themselves flats.

But on April 18, the two-member judicial commission appointed by the state government to probe the Adarsh scam said in an interim report that the land belonged to Maharashtra government and was not reserved for Kargil war martyrs' kin, as claimed by Army officials.

The commission, headed by former High Court Judge J A Patil, said MoD had failed to prove its ownership.

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan is one of the 14 accused in the case, being probed by the CBI.