Ashok Chavan’s wife gave a loan for purchase of flat in Adarsh

The controversial Adarsh housing society in Colaba continues to make news as it was revealed on Friday that former chief minister Ashok Chavan’s wife loaned money to her relative for purchasing a flat in the 31-storey tower, while former IAS officer Uttam Khobragade confessed that his daughter already possessed a house while applying for Adarsh membership.

The controversial Adarsh housing society in Colaba continues to make news as it was revealed on Friday that former chief minister Ashok Chavan’s wife loaned money to her relative for purchasing a flat in the 31-storey tower, while former IAS officer Uttam Khobragade confessed that his daughter already possessed a house while applying for Adarsh membership.

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Seema Sharma, 49, said while deposing before the Adarsh commission that she had taken a loan of Rs 6.43 lakh from her sister-in-law Amita, Chavan’s wife, to pay for the apartment.

Sharma, who works as assistant divisional manager in LIC, said that she paid Rs 73.33 lakh for the flat, and took loans from various people. These included her mother-in-law Bhagwati Sharma, who was also a member of the society and her husband Vinod Sharma, Amita’s brother. Seema agreed that three members of her family were members of the society.

Last week, Madanlal Sharma, 84, Amita’s uncle, said the rent receipt of his flat was wrong as it has named Amita as the owner.

Another person to depose was high-profile bureaucrat Uttam Khobragade, whose daughter Devyani was allotted a flat in Adarsh. He said that he had not revealed the fact that his daughter already owned an apartment in Meera cooperative housing society at Oshiwara when he applied for Adarsh. “On the day of this application [July 29, 2004], Devyani was already the member of Meera CHS. The membership to Adarsh was approved on May 12, 2008. On that day, she was still a member,” he said. Devyani, an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, got Oshiwara flat under the government quota, Khobragade said.

“My daughter was nominated as a member by the government of Maharashtra under government’s discretionary power to allot 10% quota flats. At that time, I was heading Mhada,” he said.