  A perturbative regime based on contorsion as a dynamical variable and metric
as a (classical) fixed background, is performed in the context of a pure
Yang-Mills formulation based on $GL(3,R)$ gauge group. In the massless case we
show that the theory propagates three degrees of freedom and only one is a
non-unitary mode. Next, we introduce quadratical terms dependent on torsion,
which preserve parity and general covariance. The linearized version reproduces
an analogue Hilbert-Einstein-Fierz-Pauli unitary massive theory plus three
massless modes, two of them non-unitary ones.
