Allot Adarsh flats to widows of Kargil war heros, demands NGO

Mumbai: An NGO on Thursday demanded that flats of Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society – which is facing demolition in keeping with a Bombay High Court order – be re-allotted to widows of Kargil war heroes who had sacrificed their lives for the nation. [caption id=“attachment_2779040” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Bombay HC had ordered demolition of the 31-storey Adarsh tower and sought criminal proceedings against politicians and bureaucrats for “misuse” of power. CNN News 18[/caption] Members of “Bharat Against Corruption” , led by its president Hemant Patil, on Thursday gathered near Adarsh Society tower at Colaba in south Mumbai here to stage a demonstration but withdrew their protest when police told them that section 144 of CrPc – which prohibits assembly of ten people in an area – was in force. Patil and other members of the NGO were then taken to Azad Maidan police station and later let off. Senior Inspector of Azad Maidan Police Station, Vijay Kadam, said, “the NGO members withdrew their protest and hence we did not take any action against them.” Later, speaking to reporters, Patil demanded that the Maharashtra government should file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court order which had recently asked the Centre to demolish Adarsh Society as it was illegally built upon the plot of land. The land was to be allotted to war widows and hence the allotment to bureaucrats and others was illegal, Patil told PTI. The Bombay HC, on 29 April, had ordered demolition of the 31-storey scam-tainted Adarsh tower and sought criminal proceedings against politicians and bureaucrats for “misuse” of powers, holding that the building was illegally constructed. However, on a plea made by the Adarsh Housing Society, a division bench stayed its order to pull down the building close to the sea at Colaba for 12 weeks to enable it to file an appeal in the apex court, despite the Maharashtra government opposing it. In its order, the division bench asked the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest to carry out the demolition at the expense of petitioners (Adarsh Society). The court asked the Centre and Maharashtra government to consider initiating civil and criminal proceedings against bureaucrats, ministers and politicians for misuse and abuse of power to get plots under the scheme, originally meant for Kargil war heroes and war widows.