The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected Maharashtra governor’s 2016 sanction to prosecute former chief minister and Congress leader Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh housing society scam.
Reacting to the decision, Chavan, who is state Congress Chief, said on Friday: “Truth has prevailed. I have full faith in the judiciary. The governor’s order was politically motivated.â€
Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao had earlier given his sanction to prosecute Chavan, who was asked by the Congress party to resign as CM after being implicated in the housing scam.
In February 2016, Governor C Vidyasagar Rao had reviewed the December 2013 decision taken by then Governor K Shankarnarayanan, who had rejected the CBI’s plea for sanction to prosecute the former chief minister, and given the go-ahead to prosecute him.
Following this, Chavan had filed a petition challenging the sanction. In his petition, Chavan had contended that the move to review the December 2013 decision was politically motivated and biased, and that there was no additional material to warrant a review.
Rao’s order was motivated by the change in political circumstances and not by any change in any material aspects of the case, his petition had said.
Additional solicitor general Anil Singh had argued that the Justice JA Patil Commission report and certain observations of the high court — made while rejecting Chavan’s earlier petition that challenged the trial court’s decision to reject the CBI’s plea seeking to delete his name from the accused list were “additional material†under the Criminal Procedure Code, and that the governor had been justified in granting the sanction.
“There is no question of malafide exercise of power,†Singh had said, refuting allegations that the decision was politically motivated. Singh had also justified Rao’s review of the 2013 order, arguing that the order had been passed at a time when the inquiry commission report was not available for consideration, as it had not been accepted yet.
The development has come as another sigh of relief for the Congress party after all the accused in the 2G scam were acquitted by a special CBI on Thursday.
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