Adarsh Scam: Army rebuts Adarsh Panel's report

Mumbai: An internal report of the Defence Ministry has dismissed the findings of the judicial commission's interim report into the Adarsh Housing Society scam in Maharashtra.

Mumbai's infamous tower of deceit, the Adarsh Housing Society, has now turned into a flashpoint pitting the Defence Ministry against the Maharashtra government. A state government-appointed judicial commission concluded that the land on which the building stands belongs to the state. The Army said that it was factually wrong.

A confidential report of the Army accessed by CNN-IBN states, "It seems the Adarsh report is desperate to somehow prove that the land in question was not used by the MoD."

The Army says that the state government-appointed judicial commission\'s report was factually wrong.

The document says, "The Commission has relied heavily on a 1968 unsigned note, which does not show as to who has prepared it, who has signed it and to whom it is addressed. Yet the Commission feels that it is an important document."

Regarding when the land in question came into existence, the Army claims that at at least at five places in the report the commission accepts that the Adarsh land existed in the 50s and even admits a 1957 map showing the land. But it mysteriously concludes that the land came into existence in 1973.

The Army's report also states that if one were to believe the Commission's interpretation of the Government of India Act 1935, then at least 11 major Defence centres across the country operational since the British times won't belong to it.

The Army also claims that the Commission ignored crucial documents including a 1989 letter by the then Mumbai Collector and the minutes of a high-level meeting convened in the same year. Both clearly state that the land belonged to the Army and has been in its possession since the 1940s.

While the CBI and the Judicial commission's probe is on, the documents will be a potent ammunition for the Army when it will soon open another front against the Maharashtra government by filing a title suit in the Supreme Court.

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