3 arrested in Adarsh housing scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested three persons, including a retired government official and a retired brigadier, in the multi-crore Adarsh housing scam.

The investigating agency arrested retired defence estates officer R C Thakur, Brigadier (retired) M M Wanchoo and former deputy secretary of the urban development department P V Deshmukh, two weeks after being pulled up by the Mumbai high court for inaction. These are the first key arrests in the case, which had rocked the Congress-NCP government and led to the resignation of then chief minister Ashok Chavan in November 2010. In January 2011, the CBI had registered a case against 14 people. It is yet to file a chargesheet.

Deshmukh, who was deputy secretary of the urban development department of the Maharashtra government, is the first government official to be arrested. He had allegedly signed the papers, which allowed environmental clearance to the society.

Union ministers Sushilkumar Shinde and Vilasrao Deshmukh are also under the scanner. Others being investigated are former state information commissioner Ramanand Tiwari and former member of the state’s human rights commission Subhash Lalla.

The scam hit headlines in 2010 when it was discovered that an illegal 104-apartment society had come up on one of the costliest real estate stretches of India, on a prime plot in South Mumbai. Flats in the housing society in Mumbai's Colaba area had been cornered at prices unheard of. The society was originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil War heroes and their relatives, but was later extended to 31 floors, allegedly without mandatory permission.Investigations suggest politicians, retired Army officers and senior bureaucrats colluded to corner flats in the building. Three of former chief minister Ashok Chavan's relatives were allotted flats in the high-rise.