Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan was among 13 people chargesheeted by the CBI in the Adarsh scam today. Chavan has been accused of granting approvals to the upscale housing society in Colaba as quid pro quo for allotment of two flats to his kin. Chavan,who was forced to quit after the scam surfaced in November 2010,described the allegations in CBIs 10,000-page chargesheet as unfortunate and unexpected,and accused his political rivals of trying to implicate him. This (CBIs chargesheet) is unfortunate and unexpected. The Adarsh housing is only an administrative matter. However,there is a conspiracy by my rivals to malign me. The Adarsh issue has been blown out of proportion, he told reporters after the chargesheet was filed in the sessions court. The CBI registered a case on January 29,2011 under IPC sections including criminal conspiracy,cheating,forgery and showing forged documents as genuine,besides sections under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It has charged Chavan with approving additional Floor Space Index (FSI) for the society during his tenure as chief minister,and alleged that he gave these approvals as quid pro quo for flats alloted to his mother-in-law and brother-in-law. The agency has also accused Chavan of illegally approving the allotment of 40 per cent of flats for civilians in the housing society,which was said to be meant for Kargil widows and war heroes,during his tenure as Maharashtra revenue minister in 2001-03. He had dealt with files pertaining to the ownership of land. The chargesheet also named retired Army officers Brig. (retd) M M Wanchoo,Major Gens. (retd) T K Kaul and A R Kumar,and Cols. (retd) T K Sinha and R Bakshi,former Congress MLC K L Gidwani,IAS officer Jairaj Phatak,and former CIC Ramanand Tiwari. Society members R C Thakur,P V Deshmukh,Subhash Lala and Pradeep Vyas too have been named by the CBI. The chargesheet came a day after the Maharashtra government filed an affidavit before Bombay High Court saying the agency had no jurisdiction to probe the case. CBI informed the high court that it was going to file a chargesheet,after which the agency submitted the document in the sessions court. The statements of former chief ministers (and currently union ministers) Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushil Kumar Shinde have not been incorporated in the chargesheet. Chavan said,Neither was I associated with allotment of land to the Adarsh society nor did I have anything to do with the list of its members. I have full faith in the judiciary and am confident that I will will be proved innocent and emerge out unscathed. CBI informed the court that though the names of Pradeep Vyas and Jairaj Phatak have been included in the chargesheet,the agency was still awaiting their sanction for prosecution from the Department of Personnel. It has not included the names of retired Brigadiers P K Rampal and Romesh Chandra Sharma,who were among the 14 people against whom cases were filed on January 29. However,the CBI included the name of retired Col R Bakshi who allegedly gave a letter certifying that the land did not belong to the Army. CBI also said in its chargesheet that benami transactions were still under investigation and the agency might file a supplementary chargesheet in the case. The CBI has cited 150 witnesses in the case.
