By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Thursday said allotment of nearly 5,000 flats under its 2008 housing scheme would start in November as the final report into a multi-million rupee housing scam has given it a clean chit.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police, in its report, cleared that the software used for the draw of lots was not rigged and it also ruled out any connivance of its serving employees.
Over 500,000 people applied for 5,238 flats under the DDA’s housing scheme 2008. But the scheme got mired in controversies amid allegations of fake applications. The scam came to light earlier this year after a man who was allotted a flat in the draw of lots told the police that he had not even applied for it.
The EOW started investigations, which revealed a group of people conspired to buy several flats in the names of those from reserved categories – the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes – who were eligible for the flats but could not afford them. The conspirators meant to sell off these flats at huge profit.
The DDA has now received the EOW’s report, which comprises investigations by EOW, software report from the Government Examiner on Questionable Documents (GEQD0), Hyderabad, and a report from Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Thiruvananthapuram.
“The report does not indicate any connivance or favouritism by any DDA serving officers or those connected with the draw. The allotment process will now start in November,” said DDA spokesperson Neemo Dhar.
“C-DAC, after analysing all the hard disks of computers used in DDA draw, DDA server, software, has not found any evidence of rigging of software,” said an official DDA statement.
“The report also states that from an analysis of the source code, the experts could not find any evidence to indicate that the software shows any type of bias towards any specific applicant or applicants,” the report given to EOW said.
Said Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat: “The technical report of C-DAC on the software used in the DDA draw was received and the technical experts have opined that they could not find any external tempering in the software. However, apart from the software matter, other aspects of the investigation will continue till the case is finalised.”
“As per the report of the EOW, there are nine accused persons who had fraudulently got a large number of DDA forms filled in by inducing poor and illiterate persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes with a view to corner maximum flats in bargain and caused wrongful gain for themselves. Out of the total 5,238 successful DDA applicants, only 1.37 percent, that is 72 successful candidates, fall in the purview of such investigations and are connected with these persons,” the DDA statement added.
“The persons who fall within the purview of the investigation as mentioned above, will not be issued any allotment letter till the investigating agency clears these cases,” it added.
The EOW has arrested nine people, including Deepak Kumar, who allegedly blew the lid off the scam after he fell out with some fellow real estate agents, retired DDA employee M.L. Gautam, and real estate agents Raju Ram, Laxmi Narayan Meena and Vijay Pal.