The documents were gathered by Pune-based RTI activist well before the scam became public.
Some vital documents relating to the Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society scam — such as the February 2000 proposal and an April 2000 affidavit by the society’s chief promoter stating that “all members of the society are members of Defence Services (serving and retired)” — are available with a Pune-based Right to Information (RTI) activist who has been pursuing the case over the last many years.
The RTI activist, GG Borkar, who is a lawyer by profession, has suggested the possibility that the large number of documents in his possession could include some of the papers that have gone missing from government files.
Copies of documents in Borkar’s possession include the crucial March 15, 2003 letter by the state urban development department’s (UDD) then deputy secretary PV Deshmukh to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), granting development permission to Adarsh society on land deleted from the 60.97-metre width of the Captain Prakash Pethe (PP) Marg.
Deshmukh is among those who was allotted a flat in Adarsh and is an accused in the scam.
Another vital document that has been unearthed is the February 7, 2000 letter by the proposed Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society to the then Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and the then revenue minister Ashok Chavan, seeking land for the society.
This letter states that while the original proposal for allotment of 10,000 sq m of land adjacent to the Oyster and Dolphin buildings, under CS No 4/600 had been objected to by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) as it falls under CRZ-1, an alternate proposal for allotment of 3,854 sq m of land out of Block VI of Backbay Reclamation Scheme may be considered.
It is this February 2000 proposal that was accepted by the government and which subsequently erupted into a scam ten years later.
On November 30, 2010, along with other news agencies, DNA reported: “Papers regarding the CRZ norms and papers regarding the proposals to convert the Captain Prakash Pethe Marg, situated outside Adarsh society, into a residential premises have gone missing from inside the files.” (‘Adarsh society scam: Crucial papers regarding CRZ go missing’, Nov 30, 2010).
One of the documents secured by Borkar under the RTI Act, 2005, includes a copy of Deshmukh’s letter No TPB 2099/1095/CR-154/99/UD-12, dated March 15, 2003, granting development permission on land deleted from the Captain Prakash Pethe Marg to give more floor space index (FSI) to Adarsh Society.
Deshmukh’s letter cites the relevant government notification of April 10, 2002, and states that the width of PP Marg was modified to 18.44m from 60.97m and the area so deleted was included partly in a residential zone, parade ground, helipad and BEST depot.
It further notes that the MoEF “has communicated its no-objection to allow the said residential development since it falls within the Coastal Regulation Zone II… and there appears, therefore, no objection to allow the residential development to the Adarsha (sic) Co-op Housing Society on the land included in the residential zone…”
Borkar began gathering documents relating to the Adarsh scam well before it broke out last year. “I was gathering information on multiple properties owned by bureaucrats in Maharashtra since 2003 and it is in that connection that I began pursuing Adarsh,” Borkar, who also runs an NGO called the Shirur Taluka Janheet Pratisthan, told DNA.
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