The Bombay High Court on Friday recused itself from hearing a petition in the Adarsh Housing Society scam case.
When the matter came up for hearing before the division bench of Justices P V Hardas and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi, Justice Hardas said, “Not before the bench in which my colleague Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi is a part.”
Petitioner Pravin Wategaonkar told The Hindu that an alternate bench will hear his and all other petitions related to the Adarsh case.
This is the second recusal in the matter. Last June, a division bench of Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode had recused itself from hearing the matter.
Mr. Wategaonkar had in July 2013 filed a petition seeking to make former Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde as an accused. The CBI filed a reply giving a clean chit to Shinde on the ground that the evidence against Mr. Shinde was “deficient and insufficient.” In their 2013 affidavit filed before the High Court, the CBI had stated there is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Shinde had abused his position as a public servant.
The petitioner then sought the court’s directions to the CBI to produce all the evidence the agency had gathered during the course of its investigation. He pointed out that as per the report of the Adarsh judicial Commission, Mr. Shinde, in his capacity as chief minister, failed to heed a suggestion from the finance department against allotment of land to the Adarsh housing society.