Castigating the Congress-led DF Government for its move to review its decision to reject the Adarsh commission report and partially accept its findings, the principal Opposition BJP said on Thursday said that the review of the findings undertaken by the State Cabinet was “unconstitutional” since the inquiry report was the “property of the State legislature”.
Talking to mediapersons after the State Government partially accepted the findings of a two-member commission of inquiry that probed the Adarsh scam, leader of the Opposition in the State legislative Council Vinod Tawde of the BJP reiterated the Opposition’s demand for the convening of a special session to debate and decide on the Adarsh commission findings.
Tawde said he had written to Governor K Sankaranarayanan and Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan dubbing the decision taken by the State Cabinet on the Adarsh issue as "unconstitutional".
“Even since the State Government tabled the inquiry commission report in the State legislature, it became the property of both the Houses. Any discussion or review of a decision on the report can take place only on the floor of the two House and not in the State Cabinet. That’s why we have been demanding that a special session of the State legislature be convened to decide on the Adarsh inquiry commission report,” Tawde said.
Among other things, the inquiry commission has indicted Maharashtra’s former chief ministers — late Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, Ashok Chavan — and two former Urban Development department ministers Sunil Tatkare and Rajesh Tope for patronising the Adarsh Co-operative Housing society. It has specially named Ashok Chavan and former Assembly Speaker Babasaheb Kupekar for giving permissions and clearances to the controversial housing society as quid pro quo.
In its 676-page report on the Adarsh society scam , the two-member Commission of Inquiry — comprising retired judge of Bombay High Court J A Patil and retired chief secretary of Maharashtra P Subramanyam – has also indicted five senior bureaucrats for giving permissions and clearances as quid pro quo and 12 senior public servants for violating service conduct rules.
In clear pointers to gross violations in flat allocations made by the authorities concerned and illegality that has gone into the purchase of flats in the 31-storey Adarsh building constructed at Colaba in south Mumbai, the inquiry commission has found as many as 25 out of the 102 approved members in the housing society as “ineligible” for membership and established that transactions in 22 cases of purchase of flats in the controversial housing society as “benami”.
On the issue of penal action against 22 of those found to have indulged in benami transaction in the purchase of flats in Adarsh building, Chavan said that the state government expected the CBI to prosecute all those indicted in the commission’s report under the Benami Transactions Prohibition Act, since the apex investigating agency was already seized of the matter.
However, the State Government would go ahead and cancel the allotments made to persons found to have indulged in benami transactions, Chavan said.
Alluding to the findings on the forest, CRZ and environmental rule violations indulged in by the Adarsh housing society, the Chief Minister said that the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had recommended way back in January 2011, that the “unauthorized structure (Adarsh building) be removed or demolished. The Adarsh society had moved the Bombay High Court against the MoEF’s order. The petition was pending was before the high court.
Set up on January 8, 2011 under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952, a two- member Commission — comprising retired judge of the Bombay High Court J A Patil and retired chief secretary of Maharashtra P Subramanyam – which went into various aspects of the Adarsh scam – submitted its report to the Maharashtra Government on April 19 2013.