The special court in Mumbai today extended the CBI custody of former Principal Secretary of Maharashtra's Urban Development Department, Ramanand Tiwari, and former Mumbai municipal commissioner, Jairaj Phatak, till April 17 in the Adarsh Housing Society scam. Both were arrested by CBI on April 3.
The CBI today argued that it wanted to find out the circumstances under which the purported no-objection certificate (NOC) to Adarsh from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) was conveyed to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai by Tiwari. For this, further custody was needed.
The agency also argued that Phatak had not yet disclosed the circumstances under which the increase in the height of Adarsh building was regularised by the civic authorities.