New Delhi, May 02: CBI has chargesheeted former Union minister P K Thungon and 17 others including members of his personal staff for alleged corruption in allotting government accommodation to "out of turn" allottees during his tenure as minister. Thungon, who was Minister of State in Urban Development ministry, made illegal gratification through the out of turn allotments in conspiracy with D D Arora, who was personal secretary to the then Union Urban Development Minister Shiela Kaul, the CBI said in the chargesheet filed in the court of special judge Prem Kumar.

Thungon, who was in league with Arora, used to sanction the out of turn allotments after perusing the applications which were initialled in Arora's name, it said. Two of the co-accused, T T Kumarasamy and Anant Behera, while working in Thungon's personal staff during 1993-'95 conspired to make aspirants of government accommodation believe that they could influence the minister and extorted huge sums of money from them, the agency alleged.

Further, they entered into a criminal conspiracy with Thungon through one Umesh Joshi for getting the allotments against extraneous considerations.

The agency had on April 22 submitted a chargesheet against Kaul in connection with the scam which rocked the country almost half-a-decade ago. CBI had taken up the investigation of the case in 1996 following a direction by the Supreme Court which had heard a PIL on the matter.

Bureau Report