Adarsh: Pune builder loaned Rs 1.36cr to kin of Ashok Chavan

MUMBAI: Pune builder Jayant Shah on Thursday told a judicial commission that his family had extended loans of over Rs 2.6 crore to Adarsh members, including former chief minister Ashok Chavan’s kin and former Congress MLC Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and his family.
“My son Malav has given loans to two persons—Bhagwati Sharma and Madanlal Sharma,” Shah told the commission that is probing the Adarsh scam. Malav Shah loaned Rs 65.05 lakh to Chavan’s mother-in-law Bhagwati Sharma and Rs 70.51 lakh to the ex-CM’s relative Madanlal Sharma.“I do not know whether any documentation was made in respect of the said loans,” said Shah.
The builder told the commission that his father Hiralal Shah had known Chavan’s father, former Maharashtra CM the late Shankarrao Chavan, personally for 30 years.
Shah said that he himself had given loans to Gidwani and his family. “He took a loan of Rs 30 lakh from me in 2007 and repaid the same without interest,” he said.
On the same day that Gidwani took a loan from me, he told me to give loans to his sons Kailash and Amit,” said Shah. “I have given a loan of Rs 23 lakhs to Kailash and Rs 27 lakh to Amit. Both the loans were unsecured loans. I did not insist on a security from them for the repayment of the loans because of our personal relations,” he added.
Shah also admitted having given a loan of Rs 46.50 lakh to one of his employees, Supriya Mhaske, who too was allotted a flat in Adarsh. “I did not know then that she had taken the money from me for buying a flat in Adarsh,” said Shah, adding that all the loans had been repaid to him and were reflected in his income tax returns.
Shah said that he came to know about Adarsh in 2003 from Gidwani. He said that his father Hiralal had applied for a flat in Adarsh, but his application was rejected. Subsequently, both his son Malav and nephew Dhaval were allotted flats in Adarsh.
Prashant Mankar, son of former MLA Mukundrao Mankar who was allotted a flat in Adarsh, told the commission that his father had taken a loan of Rs 70.80 lakh for buying the flat from Nagpur-based Landscape Realtors. Prashant testified before the commission as his father was suffering from paralysis and was unable to appear before the commission to give evidence. Prashant said that he had obtained the application form for membership to Adarsh from Mantralaya and the handwritten contents in the application were made by one Anand Deshmukh. Prashant said that his father had not repaid the loan. “We are aware that in case of failure to repay the loan, the loan amount would be recovered out of the sale proceeds of the flat allotted to my father,’’ Prashant told the commission.
The commission also examined Kolhapur-based builder Umesh Shinde who had loaned money to his employees—two teachers—to buy adjacent flats in Adarsh.