Mumbai/Nagpur: Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday permitted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to prosecute former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh housing scam.
Mr Chavan was the Chief Minister when reports of the Mumbai swindle erupted in 2010. He was forced to step down a few months later.
In 2013, then Governor K Sankaranarayan had refused to let Mr Chavan be prosecuted due to lack of sufficient evidence.
The Adarsh Housing Society was built in the heart of Mumbai to house war veterans and widows, but a probe conducted by the CBI found politicians, ministers and bureaucrats had been granted apartments at below-market prices.
Mr Chavan was forced to quit in November 2010 after it emerged that three of his relatives had been given apartments in the 31-storey building.
The Adarsh scam was among a retinue of corruption scandals that at the time hammered the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre. In 2014, Maharashtra spurned the Congress in the state election too, allowing the BJP and Shiv Sena to form a coalition government.
