Zeenews.com
Mumbai, June 25: Seeking to wash his hands off the Adarsh scam, Union Minister of power Sushil Kumar Shinde today told a judicial panel the decision to allot government land and grant of additional FSI to the housing society was taken during the tenure of Vilasrao Deshmukh as Chief Minister.
Both Shinde and Deshmukh had handled files pertaining to the controversial society during their stint as Maharashtra Chief Minister.
''The decision to allot the land in question to Adarsh society was taken prior to my taking over as Chief Minister. The Letter of Intent (LOI) was issued in favour of Adarsh on the morning of January 18, 2003 when Vilasrao Deshmukh was the Chief Minister. It was not issued under my instructions and it was never brought to my notice,'' Shinde said. The 71-year-old union minister was deposing before a two-member inquiry commission set up by the state government to probe into the Adarsh scam. While the commission has already concluded that the land belonged to the state government and not the Ministry of Defence, it is now looking into whether any rules were flouted while granting various clearances to the society.