The Supreme Court on Ffiday defreezed three bank accounts of Mumbai-based Adarsh cooperative housing society allowing it to withdraw amount of around Rs one crore for maintenance and litigation cost.
The bank accounts, which the society claimed to have opened to meetlitigation cost by the members, were frozen by CBI during the probe into the 2010 Adarsh scam.
A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that bank accounts will be defreezed and the society will deposit security of immovable assets to the satisfaction of special court at Mumbai.
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora said that the amount lying in these bank accounts had nothing to do with the investigation as it was collected by the members of society to meet litigation cost.
She said that after first FIR was registered in the case, the society members came forward to contribute Rs 2 lakh each to meet the expenses of litigation.
The arguments were opposed by the counsel appearing for the CBI, who said that amount need not be allowed to be withdrawn as it is very important to establish the money trail. He said that Adarsh society is a “building of shame” and several benami properties were found.
“These accounts had benami transactions and if money is allowed to be withdrawn then it will be very difficult for the agency to prove the cash trail,” he said.
The bench, however, said that the CBI can easily establish money trail as nothing can be erased from the transaction details, and defreezed the bank accounts .
The Adarsh scam had kicked up a political storm leading to the resignation of the then Congress chief minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan.