Army fully cooperating in Adarsh scam: Army Chief

NEW DELHI - Army Chief General VK Singh on Thursday said the army is fully cooperating with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai.

General Singh said the army was rendering all support in the investigation into the Adarsh scam.

“Whatever the CBI has done I am not aware of it, but whenever they want somebody we are giving them full support, whatever they want,” General Singh told reporters on the sidelines of a book release function here.

General Singh further said the Indian Army is ready to clarify its stand on certain procedural irregularities pointed out by the state auditor in the functioning of the defence ration procurements by the Canteen Stores Department (CSD).

“I am not aware if there is a extra requirement for the chiefs to go to explain something, whatever we have is quite clear, we must understand lot of things are pointed out on procedural aspects,” said General Singh.

“There are two-three issues that CAG had pointed out and that is where the PAC wants to ask or clarify various things. So, it depends on what Ministry wants from us, if they want us to go and clarify we have got no problem in clarifying,” he added.

The CBI has claimed to have found evidence of alleged forgery and manipulation of documents on part of some army officials and bureaucrats in the scam.

CBI sources said that some of the documents seized by the investigating agency were indicative of some forgery having allegedly been committed by a few defence officials in criminal conspiracy with bureaucrats of Maharashtra government and private individuals.

A decision on registering the case under provisions of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act would be taken once a clearance came from the legal department of the CBI.

Earlier on December 21, the Bombay High Court slammed the Maharashtra Government over the controversial Adarsh Housing Society scam saying it is ‘a clear-cut case of manipulation’ by its officers in which everybody who was supposed to clear the file was ‘gifted’ a flat.

The 31-storey Adarsh Society, originally meant for Kargil war heroes, landed in controversy after media reports said several politicians, bureaucrats and defence personnel owned flats there.

The CBI had on November 15 registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) to probe the alleged role of former and serving Army officers, with the permission of Defence Minister A K Antony. (ANI)