Three officials of the Maharashtra urban development department were on Friday remanded in Central Bureau custody till May 10 in the Adarsh Society missing files case by a local court, which wondered if the agency was trying to divert attention from the main housing scam by not combining the "theft" case with it.
Desk officer G Wajpe, assistant town planner N N Narvekar and Waman Rawool, all officials of the state urban development department, were arrested on Thursday evening, hours after the agency came under attack from the Bombay high court for the slow probe into the Adarsh scam.
Special magistrate D H Sharma, while granting the CBI custody, observed that looking into the sensitivity of the matter and the public interest involved, the CBI should be given a chance to interrogate the accused.
The court also rapped the CBI for not combining the cases relating to the Adarsh scam and the missing files pertaining to the housing society. "Why are both the offences not amalgamated? Are you diverting people's attention to a petty theft case and they will forget about the main scam," the judge said.
He said the custody of the accused was also required to trace the whereabouts of the missing files and find out the possible involvement of other persons, while asking the agency to show some progress by May 10.
The three accused were the last ones to have dealt with the missing files and were placed under arrest after they failed to give replies to its queries, the CBI had alleged.
After the scam came to light last September, some important files regarding the building were found to have been missing from the office of MUDD.
The Bombay high court, while hearing a PIL regarding the scam on Thursday afternoon, had asked the CBI for focusing attention on the "missing files case".
The housing society was built on prime defence land in Mumbai's posh Colaba area in alleged violation of rules. The building was originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil war heroes and their kin but was later extended to 31 floors allegedly without mandatory permission.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan was among the 13 people who figured as accused in the first information report filed by the CBI in January in connection with the scam which also names some retired senior Army officials.
Chavan, who had to quit as chief minister last year after it was found that his family members also owned flats in the society, was revenue minister from 2001-03 and had dealt with files pertaining to the ownership of the land.
Other persons named in the FIR include retired lt general P K Rampal, major generals A R Kumar and T K Kaul, Subash Lala, the then principal secretary to the chief minister and brig (retd) R C Sharma, Pradeep Vyas, the then collector of Mumbai, and P V Deshmukh, the then deputy secretary of urban development department.