NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday summoned the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Secretary with the minutes of the meeting where the decision about revival of 135 Cooperative Group Housing Societies (CGHSs) being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was taken.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma asked the Secretary to be present in person before the Court with the minutes on November 16, the next date of hearing.

Affidavit

The Bench also directed the Registrar of Societies to file an affidavit on the next date stating the procedures under which the decision to revive these societies was taken.

The Bench passed the direction after hearing counsel for the investigating agency, Harish Gulati, on the progress of the investigation into hijacking of these societies by the builder mafia and property dealers and perusing the status report filed by the agency.

Decision

"We would not spare anybody. The Court would like the investigating agency to investigate when, where and at what level the decision to revive these societies was taken because the scam was the consequence of the revival of the societies.'' the Bench observed.

"The scam would not have occurred but for the decision taken by the respondents to revive the societies,'' the Bench further observed.

The CBI in its report said: "We have noticed that a powerful builders' lobby was behind the revival of these Societies.''

Report

The investigating agency had so far found incriminating material against 76 of the 135 societies it had been asked to probe by the High Court, Mr. Gulati submitted. Of the 76, it had lodged FIRs against the officer-bearers of 70 societies.

The report further stated that 19 of the societies under investigation were found be genuine; eight societies prima facie did not look genuine but so far no criminality had been found against them and 32 were still under investigation and the probing officers had collected some evidence against them.

Meanwhile, the office of the Registrar of Societies had sent the names of 16 more societies for investigation, Mr. Gulati submitted.

Clean chit

Following the clean chit given by the investigating agency to 19 of the 135 Societies, the Bench directed the agency to free these societies from investigation so that they could go ahead with further necessary proceedings. The Bench directed the Registrar of Societies to verify the genuineness of the members of these societies.

Seeking more time for further investigation, Mr Gulati submitted that the investigating would give a complete picture of the probe by the end of this month.

The Bench allowed his request and gave four more weeks to further probe the scam.

The matter will now come up for hearing on November 16.

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