After Ashok Chavan, it's now the turn of the former Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, to face trouble for “favours” to the Adarsh Society during his tenure from January 18, 2003 to October 31, 2004, according to a complaint filed on Saturday with the Maharashtra State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
Mr. Shinde has already denied his role in the scam repeatedly. Advocate Y.P. Singh and activist Simpreet Singh told journalists that Mr. Ashok Chavan was “a small player” compared to Mr. Shinde in the scam. Giving out a 71-page complaint with government letters, file notings and other evidence, Mr. Y.P. Singh said even though the Chief Minister was replaced, evidence points to the involvement of many other people including bureaucrats who remain untouched. In a letter to the ACB, Mr. Simpreet Singh has filed a complaint of criminal misconduct, falsification of documents, misuse of official position, fraud and corruption in the matter of granting allotment to the Adarsh Society under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act against Mr. Shinde, Subhash Lalla, IAS, then principal secretary, Urban Development Department and presently member of the State Human Rights Commission, R.C. Joshi, then Revenue Secretary, Kanhaiyalal Gidwani former MLC, and R.C. Thakur, chief promoter of the Adarsh Society. Mr. Lalla was later principal secretary to the Chief Minister from March 15, 2004.
Referring to the notice served by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) on the society, Mr. Y.P. Singh said the government could file a case against the officers responsible for allowing the building to come up, especially using the provisions of the Environment Protection Act. He alleged that Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh was “playing with the law.” The allotment letter to the society clearly says that the building was violating the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules and was subject to environmental clearance. “About 80 per cent of the fraud is with the Centre,” Mr. Singh alleged.
While the letter of allotment was issued in July 2004, Mr. Shinde displayed continued ‘illegality' by issuing more instructions even after August 24, 2004 when the election code of conduct was in place, he alleged. Mr. Singh said no official decision could be taken after that as it was tantamount to bribing the voters. However, on August 23, 2004 the names of members of the society were sent to the Collector but there was no inward or outward register notings.
Citing documents obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the complaint alleges that file notings were falsified by manipulating the date of August 23, 2004 for issuing allotment to 51 members because that was the last day before the Code of Conduct for the Assembly elections was imposed. To supplement this, the complaint said that when a file noting is done by a department and when the file moves to the Chief Minister's department there is a stamp, which is not in evidence in this case.
There is an overwriting in the notings of Joint Secretary Ramakant Asmar who it seems put the date as August 24 which was changed to 23. It is physically difficult for a file to move 11 times in a single day on a complicated matter as this, it is submitted.
Further Revenue Secretary R.C. Joshi did not submit the case to the Revenue Minister as the Maharashtra Government Rules of Business. The matter was not referred to the Finance Department as per rule 11 of the Maharashtra Government Rules of Business which stipulates that for any matter related to concessional allotment of land, the matter has to be referred to the Finance Department.
The allotment of flats to 51 members to Adarsh, in addition to the 20 initially approved, was made on August 24, 2004 when the Code of Conduct for elections was in place.
Further concessions were made to Adarsh by a file noting on August 16, 2004 and orders were issued to grant the land at 20 per cent of the market value. In this case the Revenue Minister was bypassed and the file was directly put up to the Chief Minister. Once again the Finance Department was bypassed. The complaint also refutes Mr. Shinde's statement that this was a routine matter.
The documents show that he took special interest. The documents in support say that the file related to Adarsh was called by the Chief Minister's Office without assigning any reason on July 26, 2003 and was kept there till August 18, 2003. There were letters by the Chief Minister to Mr. Kanhaiyalal Gidwani who owns a flat along with his two sons in Adarsh. This was dated March 29, 2003, and there was another letter to the Chief Minister asking for additional floor space index (FSI), apart from Mr. Gidwani's letter to the Chief Minister of March 21, 2003 where Mr. Shinde instructed the matter to be put up.
