Maharashtra delays tabling Adarsh scam report in Assembly

CM told the house that the govt still needs further time to prepare an action taken report and, therefore, the report will not be tabled on Friday

In view of the monsoon session of Parliament that begins on August 5 and to avoid giving the opposition one more reason to criticise the government, the ruling Congress-led government in Maharashtra decided not to table the Commission of Inquiry report on the Adarsh Housing Society scam.

Prithviraj Chavan made a formal announcement in the state council on non-tabling of the report. He told the house that the government still needs further time to prepare an action taken report and, therefore, the report will not be tabled on Friday, the last day of three week-long monsoon session of the state legislature.

According to sources, the Congress high command advised Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan to bide some more time, citing the six-months’ time the government has before the tabling of report since it was submitted by the two member Commission in April.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last year filed a chargesheet in the Adarsh housing scam against all 14 accused - including Maharashtra's former chief minister Ashok Chavan, senior ex-Army officials and top bureaucrats. Ashok Chavan had earlier passed the blame on to his predecessors Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushil Kumar Shinde when he deposed before the quasi-judicial panel on June 30. Ashok Chavan had told the Commission of Inquiry that the decision to allot land to the controversial 31-storey tower at the plush Colaba-Cuff Parade area in south Mumbai was within the purview of the then-CMs, and not that of the revenue minister, the post he had held at the time.

Earlier, the state’s deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) blamed Prithviraj Chavan for the delay in tabling the report. “I was told by CM to say that Adarsh report will be tabled by session end,” added Pawar.

Pawar's claims come as opposition demand tabling of the probe report in the Maharashtra Assembly. NCP's co-partner Congress was shocked over Pawar's disclosures in the state assembly, showing the widening rift between the two ruling partners.