ACB court grants bail to six SRA scheme accused

Mumbai, Nov 14 (UNI) Special ACB court here today granted bail to six persons, arrested by the Anti-Corruption bureau (ACB) sleuths in the alleged fraud and criminal conspiracy in the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme, on a surety of Rs 20,000.

Special ACB Judge P N Deshmukh granted bail on the ground that the investigation authority had not filed the charge sheet within the stipulated 60 days time. He also asked them to appear before the investigating agency as and when required.

The court granted bail to Subhash Velji Chawda (architect) Netaji Gopichand Shinde (Chief Promoter) Subhash Parulekar (Rtld Rent Collector), Sudin Baba Achrekar (Colony Officer), Jayant Joshi (Rtd Senior Colony Officer), Sanjay Joshi (Asst Accounts Officer-SRA).

Earlier, on October seven, the same court had rejected their bail plea on the ground that investigations were in the initial stages and prima facie their involvement in this case is being established.

Prakash Gadiyar, Kiran Mahadik, Ramesh Bhandari - all developers of Siddhi Vinayak Construction company - Bajrang Motiram Pawaskar, Vice chairman of Sai Siddhi Vinayak Coop housing society and two others -- Narendra Barde and Vishwanath Salvi had applied for anticipatory bail which is still pending.

The ACB had arrested them following a private complaint filed by Arun Ramavatar Pathak last year against all developers of Siddhi Vinayak Construction Company alleging irregularities in the distribution of flats under SRA scheme of 2001. He pointed out that the developers had made many irregularities to put about 95 non-eligible slum dwellers eligible for the said scheme.

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