Adarsh: Court refuses bail to Phatak, Tiwari and others

A special Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday rejected the bail pleas of six accused in the Adarsh Housing Society scam, including former Maharashtra bureaucrats Jairaj Pathak and Ramanand Tiwari.

The court refused to grant them liberty, accepting CBI's argument that the investigation was still in progress.

Apart from Phatak, a former Mumbai municipal commissioner; and Tiwari, a former secretary of Urban Development Department; the court also refused relief to IAS officer Pradeep Vyas, Major General (Retired) T K Kaul, former deputy secretary in Urban Development Department P V Deshmukh and chief promoter of Adarsh Society Kanhaiyyalal Gidwani.

While Phatak and Tiwari had sought bail for the first time, other four got their bail pleas rejected for the second time. These four had cited changed circumstances, as the judicial commission conducting an independent inquiry had said  in the recently-submitted interim report that the land on which Adarsh stands belonged to the state, and not the defence ministry as alleged.

The Adarsh Society in south Mumbai is facing allegations of violating a host of environmental and civic laws.