The Central Bureau of Investigation will write to the ministry of defence seeking details of the monthly salaries of top brass officers. Officials said that top-ranking Army officers had declared meagre salaries for procuring flats in the Adarsh society. In fact, it has been found that salaries of their juniors was higher than the officers’ “declared” salaries.
The CBI has procured documents from the Maharashtra government in which the profiles of all the members of the controversial housing society were named along with their monthly income, official sources said.
The documents had earlier been made public by RTI activist Yogacharya Anandji which showed that then Army Chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor had shown his salary as `23,450 and surprisingly around the same time his lieutenant-general Tejinder Singh had declared his salary to be `41,000 a month. The CBI has collected these documents and will write to the ministry of defence seeking details regarding the same, a senior official said, adding, if the officials had filed false affidavits, action could be taken against them for “misrepresentation of facts”.
Former Army Chief Nirmal Chander Vij had in 2007 declared his monthly income as `39,825.
The documents have revealed at least 40 out of the 87 proposed Adarsh members declared their monthly income to be `12,500 or lower as on January 2004 (71-member list) and December 2007 (16-member list).
Under a 1999 government resolution, civilians as well as retired defence and government employees could not get memberships in societies like Adarsh unless they earned `12,500 a month or lower. The rule was later relaxed for a few officers. Among the income declarations of `12,500 and lower, are those of Kanishka Pathak, son of ex-BMC chief Jairaj Pathak who has declared `12,500 a month and Malav Shah, son of Pune-based builder Jayantilal Shah, who declared `11,000. Brigadier M.M. Wanchu, office-bearer of Adarsh, listed his income as `10,000 a month. Paramveer Sancheti, son of Abhay Sancheti, chairman of Nagpur-based SMS Infrastructure, declared his salary as `13,630 a month in 2007.