The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday grilled three main accused, including a Congress leader and a retired Army official in the Adarsh housing scam, six days after it registered a case against former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and 12 others.
The three -- Adarsh society's general secretary R C Thakur, retired Brigadier M M Wanchoo and Congress leader K L Gidwani -- were questioned at the CBI office here at Colaba.
The agency confronted them with documents seized during searches on January 30, a day after registering the case against the 13 accused.
According to the FIR, Thakur and Wanchoo allegedly conspired with others to illegally get the land allotted in favour of Adarsh Cooperative Housing society in which they were members. The 31-storey building with 103 flats was originally meant for Kargil heroes and their families.
Later, Gidwani also allegedly used his personal influence with the public servants to lure them with membership in lieu of favours.
Gidwani told media persons, "We were issued notices on Tuesday asking us to remain present before the CBI. We are being questioned...I am co-operating with the agency."
Gidwani said he had not yet thought of filing an anticipatory bail plea.
Senior officials from the Defence Estate Office were also called for verification of the documents seized during the searches on January 30.
In a related development, the CBI is also now planning to quiz former Deputy Secretary of Urban Development Department P V Deshmukh after the agency claimed to have recovered Rs 23 lakh from his residence during the searches.
"Apart from certain documents, hard disk and laptop, we recovered Rs 23 lakh from Deshmukh's residence here," a CBI official said.
Two months after initiating a preliminary inquiry, CBI had on January 29 registered an FIR against 13 people, including Chavan, retired army officials, bureaucrats and state government officials on charges of criminal conspiracy, fraud and misuse of their official powers.
Soon after registration of the FIR, the agency conducted searches at the premises of Thakur, Wanchoo, Gidwani and suspended state information commissioner Ramanand Tiwari in various parts of Maharashtra and Bihar.
The 13 accused include six retired top army brass, four ex-IAS officers, two politicians and a former defence estates officer.
The FIR accuses the 13 of offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), like criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery for the purpose of cheating and public servants using forged documents as genuine. They have also been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.