Mumbai:
Even as several Army officers lined up for flats in Mumbai's controversial Adarsh Society, the Army and the Navy wrote to the government barely three months ago, stating that the high-rise building in Mumbai's prized Colaba was a security risk.
The 31-storey building seems poised to expose a careful conspiracy between Army officers, bureaucrats and politicians to help themselves to flats that were meant to largely be reserved for war widows and veterans. Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan is waiting to hear whether his resignation will be accepted. He acknowledged last week that his relatives were allotted flats in the building, but have since returned them.
The building - originally meant to be less than 10 storeys high - expanded, allegedly without environmental clearances, to overlook important Army and Naval installations around it. So in August, the Southern Army Command in Pune and the Western naval Command in Mumbai wrote to the government warning of a security risk.
The Navy said that it had asked office-bearers of the Adarsh Society to share details of the different people who were allotted flats, so that their backgrounds could be checked. The society allegedly refused.
In separate letters, the Army and the Navy asked the centre to take over the building. They said Adarsh Society gave flat-owners vantage views of supply depots, a Naval fuel dump and an Army engineering workshop. The Army and Navy told the Ministry of Defence, that a civilian society cannot overlook defence installations.