Adarsh scam: CBI raids IAS officer, Jairaj Phatak,?s premises

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday raided the residences of senior IAS officer Jairaj Phatak in three cities in connection with the Adarsh Housing scam.

The premises of Phatak, who is a former Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner, in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune were searched.

The CBI had on Monday procured sanction from the Centre to prosecute Phatak, a 1978 batch IAS officer.

?We got the sanction to prosecute him yesterday (Monday) following which searches were conducted this morning at Phatak?s residences in Mumbai, Pune and his official residence in Delhi,? CBI sources were quoted as stating in reports.

Phatak is charged with approving an increase in the height of the Adarsh Housing Society building from 97 metres to 107 metres in 2007 when he was the BMC commissioner, without consulting other officials.

The IAS officer?s son Kanishka also owns an apartment in the building.

The CBI had filed the charge-sheet in the scam on January 29, in which former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan and other army officers and bureaucrats are named as accused.

The Adarsh society flats were originally meant for war widows and their dependants but former defence officers and kin of powerful politicians and bureaucrats ended up getting membership.

Ashok Chavan was forced to quit as Chief Minister last year after it was revealed that his kin including late mother-in-law, owned flats in the Adarsh society.