Thaindian News

Mumbai, Feb 1 (ANI): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday informed the Bombay High Court that it has registered case against 13 accused in the Adarsh Housing Society scam.

The High Court later directed social activist Simpreet Singh, who had demanded that the entire scam probe be handed over to CBI, to forward his complaint and papers to the central investigation agency.

A division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and U D Salvi also rejected an application filed by one of the accused in the case and former Deputy Secretary of Urban Development Department, P V Deshmukh, seeking to clear his stand before the court and get a copy of the FIR.

“Deshmukh has been implicated in the case without allowing him to clear his stand. His letters of recommendation has been misconstrued. He received a letter from the members of Adarsh Society and as a Deputy Secretary of the Urban Development department he only forwarded it to the Union Environment Ministry,” Deshmukh’s lawyer Niteen Pradhan argued.

The court, however, refused to hear the application, and observed: “CBI is responsible and must have named someone as an accused only after reasonable suspicion. It is an established fact that an accused does not have right to clear his stand before hand.”

The court also directed Deshmukh to seek a copy of the FIR before the special CBI court.

On a plea made by the petitioner to transfer the missing papers case also to CBI, the division bench directed Crime Branch Joint Commissioner of Police to file a reply by February 17.

Earlier on Sunday, the CBI carried out raids across the country in connection with the scam.

The CBI had on Saturday filed an FIR in the case. The FIR named former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan along with 12 others.

The developments came after the Bombay High Court pulled up the CBI last week for its slow investigation into the case.

The High Court had asked the CBI to complete its probe into the Adarsh housing society scam in two weeks. The CBI had also been asked to take a decision on filing FIRs in the case.

The Adarsh scam claimed its first victim last year in the form of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who was forced to resign after reports surfaced that his kin owned flats in the society.

After Chavan, top bureaucrats too faced the axe, most notably among them being Maharashtra’s Chief Information Commissioner Ramanand Tiwari and Human Rights Commissioner Subhash K Lalla.

The 31-storey Adarsh Housing Society, originally meant for Kargil war heroes, landed in controversy after media reports said that several politicians, bureaucrats and defence personnel owned flats there. (ANI)