Adarsh scam: CBI custody of Phatak, Tiwari extended

Mumbai: The special court here today extended the CBI custody of former Principal Secretary of Maharashtra’s Urban Development Department, Ramanand Tiwari, and former Mumbai municipal commissioner, Jairaj Phatak, till 17 April in the Adarsh Housing Society scam. Both of them were arrested by CBI on 3 April. The CBI today argued that it wanted to find out the circumstances under which the purported no objection certificate (NOC) to Adarsh from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) was conveyed to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai by Tiwari. [caption id=“attachment_274262” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] For this, further custody was needed, it said. The agency also argued that Phatak had not yet disclosed the circumstances under which the increase in the height of Adarsh building was regularised by the civic authorities. Adarsh Society stands in south Mumbai, in coastal regulation zone (CRZ). One of the allegations in the case is that the 31-storey building came up without NOC from the MoEF, and a letter from the union ministry was misinterpreted by some state bureaucrats as an NOC. PTI