Defence Ministry kept in dark over road widening for Adarsh: Ramanand Tiwari

Former bureaucrat and an accused in the Adarsh scam Ramanand Tiwari today admitted before the inquiry commission that Maharashtra government had not sent any notice to the Defence Ministry while deciding on a plan to widen a road in front of the highrise in South Mumbai.

During a cross examination by the counsel for Ministry of Defence, Aniket Nikam, Tiwari was asked if a notice was sent to the army before widening of the road as it falls in defence area, to which the former state information commissioner replied in the negative.

Tiwari also denied that the Bombay Electricity and State Transport (BEST) had sought the land adjacent to the 31-storey building for the purpose of constructing officers' quarters.

The plot which was reserved for BEST was dereserved to residential type and the Floor Space Index (FSI) was granted to Adarsh society.

During questioning by Dipan Merchant, counsel for the panel, Tiwari said that BEST did not on its own make a request for deletion of the reservation of the plot in its favour.

The commission subsequently asked him if he thought it would have served greater public interest if the adjacent plot would have been used for housing the BEST employees, to which Tiwari replied in the negative.