The Hindu : National : Adarsh: CBI seeks details of Army brass salaries

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 22, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Adarsh: CBI seeks details of Army brass salaries

MUMBAI: The emoluments of Army brass as purportedly declared by them while procuring flats in Adarsh Society here has surprised the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is approaching the Defence Ministry to seek clarification on whether an Army Chief was being paid only Rs. 23,450 a month.

The CBI has procured the documents from the Maharashtra government in which the profiles of all the members of the controversial housing society were mentioned along with their monthly income, official sources said.

Documents made public

The documents had earlier been made public by RTI activist Yogacharya Anandji which showed that the then Army Chief, General Deepak Kapoor, had shown his salary as Rs. 23,450, and surprisingly around the same time his Lieutenant-General Tejinder Singh had announced his salary as Rs. 41,000 a month.

The CBI has collected these documents of 2007 and will write to the Ministry of Defence seeking details regarding the same, a senior official said, adding that if the officials had filed false affidavits, action could be taken.

Asked to comment on these allegations, General Kapoor said that he had applied to the society on December 26, 2005, when he was serving as Lt. General of the Northern Army Command. “I had given a salary slip which showed my monthly emoluments at Rs. 47,000 per month with nearly Rs. 7,000 deducted as Income Tax,” he told PTI.

General Kapoor said he did not know how these documents showed the date of December 2007 as he had supplied no documents in that year for the society.

According to the documents procured under the RTI Act by Anandji, General Kapoor, while registering for a flat in the plush society in south Mumbai, had declared his monthly salary income as Rs.23,450 only, while Lt.General Singh declared Rs.41,000 as his monthly income.

The former Army chief, Nirmal Chander Vij, in 2007 declared his monthly income as Rs.39,825.

The documents have shown that at least 40 out of the 87 proposed Adarsh members declared monthly income of Rs.12,500 or lower as of January 2004 (71-member list) and December 2007 (16-member list).

Under a 1999 government resolution, civilians as well as retired defence and government employees could not get memberships in societies like Adarsh unless they earned Rs.12,500 a month or lower. The rule was later relaxed for a few officers. — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail