Accused lied about army clearance: charge sheet

In order to get the land allotted to Adarsh society, the key conspirators in the scam had told the then chief minister that they had got clearance from the army on the condition that they would give accommodation for a girl’s hostel, the CBI charge sheet claimed. Charul Shah reports.

In order to get the land allotted to Adarsh society, the key conspirators in the scam had told the then chief minister that they had got clearance from the army on the condition that they would give accommodation for a girl’s hostel, the CBI charge sheet claimed.

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They also claimed that hostel would be for daughters of officers posted in remote areas.

The charge sheet states that in a letter dated September 21, 1999, RC Thakur, the then SDO, Army Estate Officer, had requested the then Maharashtra chief minister for allotment of the land adjacent to Backbay bus depot in Colaba.

The charge sheet further states that in his subsequent letter dated February 7, 2000, Thakur again claimed that they had received the local military authorities permission for the society. (Narayan Rane was the chief minister from February 1999 to October, 1999. Vilasrao Deshmukh took over as CM on October 18, 1999.) However, the charge sheet said, no such agreement or arrangement was made at the time.

Base on this, the then chef minister forwarded the letter to the revenue department to take necessary action. As per the charge sheet, it was on the basis of these letters the revenue department initiated the process of conducting a survey of the plot.

Later in 2000, defence officers approached then MLC KL Gidwani for help.

The charge sheet claimed that Gidwani, who played an important role in expediting the process of getting the allotment of the land, also falsely represented that the flats would be allotted for the army welfare.

He had stated that the society was basically for serving retried defence officers, including those who had served in Operation Vijay during the Kargil war.