Retd HC judge to probe "irregularities" in CM's housing quota

The Bombay High Court today said it would pass an order on the appointment of a retired judge for the proposed one-man committee to probe alleged irregularities in the Chief Minister's housing quota tomorrow.
Acting on a previous order, the registrar general of the High Court today submitted names of three retired High Court judges to the court.
A division bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka said the consent of the former judge to be chosen for the appointment would be obtained before the order is passed.
The bench asked the petitioner Ketan Tirodkar and advocate general Darius Khambata not to disclose the names of the three shortlisted former judges to anyone till then.

The committee would scrutinise all the applications for flats from the CM's discretionary quota since 1989 and look for the cases where a single person has got more than one flat (which is illegal).
The court said the committee would scrutinise the affidavits filed with the applications to find out if the persons who got more than one flat had submitted false information.

The court also asked Maharashtra government to submit additional data about the flats taken back from those who had been allotted more than one flat and also sought information about the FIRs registered against such allottees.
On the last occasion, the state had informed that it had filed FIRs against 27 persons who secured more than one flat by giving false declarations.

The PIL takes objection to the CM's housing quota, saying that only those who wield political influence get flats under it.