Adarsh scam: Army issues notice to Major General

After completing its Court of Inquiry into the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Army has issued show cause notice to a serving Major General about his alleged role in allowing the private building to be constructed on defence land.

"After the Court of Inquiry (COI), the Army has issued a show cause notice to Maj Gen Ram Kanwar Hooda, the then General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa Area about his role in the whole issue and he has also submitted his reply," Army sources said here.

The Army had ordered a CoI under Pune-based Military Intelligence School Commandant Lt Gen J S Rawat after the scam broke out to probe the role of serving officers including Hooda in the scam.

After the COI was ordered, Hooda, serving as Additional Director General (Mechanised Forces) at the Army Headquarters here, was put under Discipline and Vigilance (DV) ban by the Adjutant General''sbranch.
Any officer under the such a ban is not considered for any course or promotion by the authorities.

The CoI was completed in January and has concluded that the land on which the society was built belonged to the Army and was wrongfully given away to private builders.

The 104-apartment society got embroiled in a controversy after the navy had raised concerns over security as the building over-looked important military installations.

On December nine last year, Defence Minister A K Antony had ordered a CBI probe to fix responsibility of the armed forces and defence estates officers in the housing scam.

He had asked the CBI to look into the circumstances under which a ''No Objection Certificate'' was issued to the housing society to construct the 31-storey building on a piece of land, which was in the "de facto" possession of the Army.

The probe agency was also asked to investigate into the commitments made for allotment of flats in the society for Kargil widows and martyrs'' families.

Former army chiefs Gen Deepak Kapoor and N C Vij, apart from former navy chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh had flats allotted in their names in the housing society.

Soon after the scam came to light, the defence ministry had asked the Army, Navy and the defence estates to submit a report on the issue.

The preliminary findings of the ministry''s probe brought out "criminal conspiracy" at the local level in army and defence estates to give up the land, which was in army''s possession till 1999-2000, in favour of the housing society.