Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan
Five days after Rahul Gandhi publicly censured the Maharashtra government for rejecting a report on what's known as the Adarsh housing scam, the report has been "partly accepted," said chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
The Adarsh Housing Society is a 31-story building in Colaba in South Mumbai whose apartments were intended for war veterans and widows, but were allegedly grabbed by politicians, defence officers and bureaucrats.
The report into the swindle, prepared by a retired judge, was rejected by the state government last month partly because it indicted four former chief ministers, all from the Congress. Among them is Sushilkumar Shinde, who is now Union Home Minister.
Mr Chavan, who heads a coalition government between the Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP, said today that Mr Shinde will not be investigated because he had been faulted for political patronage of the housing project; there was no suggestion of any criminality, he said.
However, he made no attempt to offer cover to Ashok Chavan, Congress leader and former chief minister, who has been accused of criminal charges by the CBI which is inquesting the scam.
Last week, Mr Gandhi, who is Congress vice-president, said that he disagrees with the government's decision to reject the report, a stand that was later backed by his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi.
Mr Chavan said today that 25 apartment owners were ineligible and notices to cancel their allotment will be sent. One such allottee was Devyani Khobragade, the Indian diplomat in the US whose arrest for alleged visa fraud has forged a diplomatic row between Washington and New Delhi. The cabinet also decided that another 22 flats were "benami" or owned by proxy owners and legal action would be taken.