Bombay high court today observed that the controversial Adarsh society smacked of 'a clear-cut case of manipulation' by its officers in which everybody who was supposed to clear the file was "gifted" a flat.
Everybody who was supposed to clear the file was gifted a flat in the Adarsh housing society, said the Bombay high court on Tuesday, in a scathing observation of the role of the state’s revenue and urban development departments in the scandal.
“It is a clear-cut case of manipulation,” it said.
“We have no objection to societies coming up. But not this way,” said a bench of justices BH Marlapalle and UD Salvi. The judges noted that in a society meant for defence personnel, only 50 out of the 104 allottees were from the forces.
The bench was hearing a petition filed by the society challenging the cancellation of the occupation certificate as well as discontinuation of power and water supply.
The judges questioned why no drastic penal action was initiated against its officers by the state. “You took action against Adarsh (society) immediately, what about the officers? You have not filed an FIR except in the case of missing papers from the files. There is no desire,” said justice Marlapalle.
Marlapalle took the state’s lawyer Ranjeet Bhosale through the pages of the society’s records and to approval granted to members in stages. The judge said the land on which the society stands was in the possession of the defence ministry, but this was altered by the July 9, 2005, order of PV Deshmukh, deputy secretary, urban development department.
“By this amendment the whole thing changed. No CBI inquiry is going to help now,’’ remarked the justice.
Additional solicitor general Darius Khambata submitted that in 1999, two letters in connection with the plot were written by the state government to the Union ministry of environment and forests.
One mentioned that the society “deserves special consideration as it is meant for defence personnel and those fighting in Kargil and surroundings even today.” He said out of original 71 members only two fought in Kargil.
The court also observed that the government appeared to have gone “out of way” to please former army chiefs Deepak Kapur and Nirmal Chandar Wij, who were initially not allotted flat because they were not residents of the state for 15 years, but later got the flats as “exceptional cases”.
The court asked the society whether it was willing to accommodate defence personnel in up to 12 floors of the building. It would then issue an interim order for restoration of power and water supply and direct the court’s receiver to take over the remaining floors. Society’s counsel Rafiq Dada said he would reply to the court’s suggestion on December 23.
The judges also read out the names in the list of members, including politicians like Jitendra Awhad, Suresh Prabhu, Babasaheb Kupekar and relatives of bureaucrats Uttam Khobragade and CS Sangitrao. The court wondered how a couple of them living in Sangli and Kolhapur got to know about allotments in Adarsh or could afford to buy flats here.
``Now as it has come to our notice through a writ petition, we don’t want to leave it,’’ concluded the judges.
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