The CBI on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court that it has accepted the orders of a lower court and the HC holding its pleas to remove Congress leader Ashok Chavan’s name from the list of accused in the Adarsh Society scam as “wrong and bad in law”.
In 2014, the agency had filed an application in a special CBI court to remove Mr. Chavan’s name from the list of accused after Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao denied it permission to prosecute the former Chief Minister. The plea had been rejected by the court, following which the CBI approached the HC, which also dismissed the application.
In 2015, the CBI requested Mr. Rao to review his decision, saying there was fresh evidence against Chavan. In February 2016, the Governor granted permission to the CBI to prosecute Chavan. The Congress leader later challenged the Governor’s order in the HC.
CBI lawyer Hiten Venegaonkar told a Division Bench comprising Justices Ranjit More and Sadhana Jadhav, which is hearing Mr. Chavan’s petition, that the agency has accepted the courts’ orders dismissing its pleas. “We accept the court orders holding CBI’s applications as bad in law and wrong. We have not appealed against the orders in the Supreme Court,” he said.
Mr. Venegaonkar was responding to Justice Jadhav’s question on if CBI had acted in haste by approaching the court to remove Mr. Chavan’s name from the list of accused, instead of seeking a review of the Governor’s order. Meanwhile, the CBI opposed Mr. Chavan’s petition. If the court allows the plea, it would amount to his acquittal and render the entire probe futile, it said.
The hearing will continue on Thursday.
