The Bombay High Court on Friday ordered the Union Environment Ministry to demolish 31-storey Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society. The counsel for Adarsh Housing Society pleaded for a 12-week stay on the demolition order to enable its appeal in the Supreme Court and the high court bench granted a stay.
We direct the Union of India to forthwith demolish Adarsh building," began Justice R G Ketkar, wasting not a second after he took a seat next to Justice R V More in the Bombay high court on Friday . His words came as a wrecking ball exactly at 3pm for the team of Adarsh cooperative housing society, leaving even their senior counsel Navroz Seervai stunned for a moment.
The judge's second line in the judgment sealed the fate for babus and their political masters too. "We direct the Union and state governments to consider initiating proper civil or criminal proceedings against concerned bureaucrats and politicians, if not done so far for committing various offences in acquiring the land and also for abuse of powers."
The court has directed the society to pay a cost of Rs 1 lakh each to various officials including Sitaram Kunte, T C Benjamin, MoEF officers Senthilval, Thiru, MoEF director Bharat Bhushan and its advisor Nalini Bhat.
The court has directed the state to initiate criminal prosecution against the officers involved in the scam and to restore the plot. The order to raze the building comes after the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) passed an order to demolish the scam-hit society in 2011, following which its members approached the Bombay High Court challenging it. The ministry had on January 16, 2011 directed the Society to demolish within three months the "unauthorised" building for violating coastal regulations.
The bench of Justices RV More and RG Ketkar has directed the Ministry of Defence to conduct a departmental inquiry into its officers for not taking action early enough, when the building scam came to light.
The controversial building, though still unoccupied, promised great sea-views for the bureaucrats or their families who were allotted these flats, allegedly in lieu of processing the files fast, in what was otherwise meant to be a housing scheme for serving and retired defence personnel and war widows.
By Premji
