Mumbai/New Delhi, November 27
Four crucial pages from the files pertaining to the controversial Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society have gone missing from the Urban Development Department here, according to a police complaint. Sources said the missing pages had notings made by former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and other senior bureaucrats.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Cherring Dorje told reporters here that a case was registered after Gurudas Bajpe, a secretary in the Urban Development Department, gave a written complaint to the Marine Drive police station last Friday night about the missing documents. “We have registered a case against unknown persons. According to Urban Development Department officials, several papers from the 10 files on Adarsh Society were missing,” Dorje said.

The CBI, which is probing the multi-crore scam, discovered the missing documents and informed the Urban Development Department after which Bajpe filed the police complaint. The department had submitted 10 files pertaining to Adarsh 

Society to the CBI. During perusal, four noting papers were found missing from the files. According to the police complaint, the missing pages are 15, 97, 99 and 279 from Noting Number 154/99 dated August 30, 2009 and November 1, 2010.

The police are questioning bureaucrats and other officials of the Urban Development Department. The portfolio has been handled directly by successive Chief Ministers. “Investigations are on. We are questioning authorities of the Urban Development department,” Dorje said.

The Adarsh Society, originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil War heroes and war widows, was converted into a 31-storey building, violating a number of laws. The flats were allotted to bureaucrats, politicians’ relatives and defence officers.

Meanwhile, the Centre today blamed the complex land title system for the Adarsh scam and favoured urgent reforms in the sector to make it transparent and effective.

Speaking at a seminar in New Delhi, Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy said, “The recent scandal relating to Adarsh Society is a classic example. Nobody knows to whom the land belongs. Can there be a more sorry example of land titling? I am not talking of misuse by the people belonging to every important walks of life — politicians, defence forces, bureaucrats... I am not referring to the scandal part of the thing.”