Ashok Chavan charge sheeted in Adarsh scam

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Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan was among 13 people charge sheeted by CBI on Wednesday in the multi-crore Adarsh Housing scam.

The 10,000-page CBI charge sheet was filed before the Registrar of a sessions court, nearly 18 months after the agency registered a case.

The Adarsh scam had fuelled a political storm in Maharashtra leading to the resignation of Chavan as the chief minister.

Earlier in the day, the CBI informed the Bombay High Court, hearing a batch of public interest litigations seeking the court's supervision of the probe, that it would be filing a charge sheet later in the day.

The CBI has registered a case on January 29 last year against Chavan and others, which included bureaucrats and retired army personnel.

The agency had in March arrested nine out of the 14 accused after receiving a rap on its knuckles from the High Court for not initiating action against the accused persons.

The nine arrested accused are – R.C. Thakur, secretary of Adarsh, retired brigadier M.M. Wanchoo, former Congress MLC Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, both promoters of the society, former deputy secretary of urban development department P.V. Deshmukh, IAS officers Ramanand Tiwari and Jairaj Phatak, retired major generals A.R. Kumar and T.K. Kaul and former city collector Pradeep Vyas.

They were released on bail by a special CBI court after CBI failed to file charge sheet within the stipulated 60-day period after arrest. They have been charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating and the Prevention of Corruption Act.