| Posted on: 2012-01-03/22:51:34 | India - Fraud & Cyber Crime News | Others/ |
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Suspended state information commissioner and former principal secretary (urban development department) Ramanand Tiwari on Tuesday said that the chief minister was kept in the dark about the fact that the width of a public road was reduced to favour Adarsh housing society. Tiwari's statement came even as the judicial commission grilled him about his six-year term as a secretary in the UDD headed by two chief ministers, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushilkumar Shinde. Tiwari, whose son Omkar has a flat in Adarsh, was named in the FIR filed by the CBI in the case. I did not bring it to the notice of the chief minister that the land in question was being offered to a private housing society by reducing the width of the road (Captain Prakash Pethe Marg)," said Tiwari, in response to questions put to him by senior advocate Dipan Merchant and advocate Bharat Jhaveri, counsels for the commission. The road was initially to be reserved for a 60.97-m wide Colaba-Uran Link Road. In 2002, the state ordered the reduction of the width of the road to 18.40 m -a move that benefitted Adarsh as a portion of the land was allotted to it. Tiwari, who had handled the file on the issue, insisted that he had satisfied himself that the reduction of the road width was in public interest. "It was not brought to the notice of the general public that the proposed width of the road was reduced to carve out a plot for a housing society," he said. Tiwari added that he did not bring it to the notice of the CM that the army was using Captain Prakash Pethe Marg for entry and exit. The panel questioned Tiwari's six-year-long tenure as a secretary in the UDD, when the normal tenure is three years. Tiwari claimed he was not aware as to why he was retained as a secretary and that he had not made any request to the CM. |
| Source: E T | Location : Mumbai |
