CID fails to make headway in tracing missing files

Even as the Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a First Information Report against 13 persons including former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, in connection with the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam and conducted raids on four persons named in the FIR, the Mumbai Crime Branch has yet to make headway in this housing society's missing file case.

The crime branch had taken over the case from the Marine Drive police on November 28, 2010, and questioned ten state government officials suspected to be linked to the missing file case. However, so far it has been unable to pinpoint the involvement of Urban Development ( UD) department officials involved in relevant papers containing vital noting missing from two files.

Two files noting related to the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam ¸ dated August 30, 2009 and November 1, 2010, had gone missing from the UD department. Page number 15, 97, 99 and 279 from noting number 154/ 99 were reported to be missing by the Central Bureau of Investigation which is probing into the Adarsh Society scam.

On November 27, 2010, a first information report was registered by the Marine Drive police based on a complaint filed by an UD department Gurudutt Vajpeyi for theft and attempt to destroy official government records.

CBI was alerted about the cover- up attempt while rummaging through decks of files related to Adarsh society, which had been earlier submitted by the UD department.

Interestingly, the missing files have vital noting and observations made by the then Additional Chief Secretary ( Urban Development) Ramanand Tiwari and Chief Minister's office since 2002.

It is learnt that Narayan Rane, then a cabinet minister had granted preliminary permission to the society on September 21, 1999.

Later the then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh signed on the file in 2000 and the then revenue minister Ashok Chavan approved the Letter of Intent and put Adarsh on the priority list for development in June 2000.

In 2003, Vilasrao Deshmukh approved additional land allotment while the final approval and environment clearances came under the chief ministership of Sushil Kumar Shinde.

On July 9, 2004 Shivaji Rao Nilangekar, the then revenue minister, had cleared additional land allotment to the society.

The two files contain signatures of important officials, decisions and noting, and correspondence with different agencies, during the final stages before the project was cleared by the CM's office.

" We are working on vital leads and in a few days will establish the role of the officials involved in tampering with the files and theft of the vital papers from these two files. However, its clear that an attempt had been made to conceal material evidence related to UD department abetting in the scam since 2000 and names of some of the UD department officials have been short listed as prime suspects," said a crime branch official.