Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday said that the 31-storey Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society Building, originally meant to be a six-storey structure for Kargil war heroes and war widows but has been taken over by politicians, ministers and officers, and must be demolished.

However, the counsel for Adarsh Housing Society pleaded for a 12-week stay on the demolition so that they could appeal in the Supreme Court. The High Court bench granted a stay.

The court also ordered a criminal prosecution against politicians, ministers and officers who were involved in the scam.

The court was hearing various petitions filed by the Adarsh Society, the ministry of defence and public interest litigation on the construction of this building.

The Adarsh scam took place during the previous Congress government’s rule in the state and the court order comes at a time when there is a raging political battle between the BJP and Congress over the helicopter scam during the former Congress-led UPA regime at the centre. The Bombay High Court order is expected to send a strong message against corruption, especially land grabbing.

Over a period of several years, politicians, military and government officers and bureaucrats plotted to bend several regulations concerning land ownership, membership and violation of Coastal Regulation Zone rules to get themselves apartments allotted in this co-operative society in the posh and expensive South Mumbai locality at very low rates.

The scam was first exposed in November 2010 which forced the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan, to resign after it emerged that his relatives owned flats in the building.

In 2013, a judicial commission found that 25 of the 102 members in the Adarsh Society were ineligible and there were 22 cases of flats being bought on proxies. The inquiry also said Chavan and other bureaucrats gave clearances and permission as a quid pro quo. But the then governor K Sankaranarayanan didn’t sanction the prosecution of Chavan on grounds of insufficient evidence.

However, in February this year, the present governor sanctioned Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to prosecute Chavan.

He is among the 12 people chargesheeted by the CBI in connection with the case. The CBI alleged that Chavan suggested inclusion of civilian members in the Adarsh Society to secure flats for his relatives in the complex.

In 2011, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said, “The episode of Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society reveals how a group of select officials, placed in key posts, could subvert rules and regulations in order to grab prime government land — a public property — for personal benefit.”

In December 2013, a two-member judicial commission led by Bombay High Court’s former judge J A Patil in its report on Adarsh scam passed strong strictures against former chief ministers, the late Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde, Shivajirao Nilangekar and Chavan and former ministers of state Sunil Tatkare and Rajesh Tope. The report stated that the Adarsh Society enjoyed the patronage of above politicians. However, whilst tabling the report in the state assembly, former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced that its findings were rejected by the state cabinet and only a portion of the report was accepted.

Timeline on Adarsh:

November, 2010: The Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society is unearthed and reveals how politicians, ministers, military officers and bureaucrats bent rules and regulations to gift themselves with flats on government/defence land.

What sensationalised the scam was that the building was originally meant to house Kargil war veterans and war widows.

January 2011: The Maharashtra government sets up a two-member judicial commission to inquire into the matter

March 2012: On the basis of a spate of Public Interest Litigations on the matter, the Bombay High Court castigates the CBI for not arresting any of the accused in spite of having evidence. The CBI then carried out eight arrests including military officers.

November 27, 2012: Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, former Congress legislator, who was the chief promoter in the Adarsh Society and was an accused in the case, dies. In 2003, he proposed that the Adarsh Society be given additional floor space index from the nearby BEST bus depot and also eating up a part of the Pethe Marg.

2013: The judicial commission presents its report and indicts former chief ministers as well as Ashok Chavan.

Former Governor K Sankaranarayanan does not sanction the prosecution of Ashok Chavan under grounds of lack of evidence.

2014: BJP-led government comes into power. Governor C Vidyasagar Rao gives sanction to CBI to prosecute Chavan in February this year.