The State government has cancelled the appointment of lawyer Pravin Chavan as special public prosecutor in a graft case against former MLA Ramesh Kadam, a special court was informed on Friday. In March, then Opposition leader and now deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had presented video recordings before the legislative assembly deputy speaker alleging that a few persons, including Chavan and members of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, could be heard conspiring “to frame BJP leaders”. Chavan had then voluntarily resigned from the post of special public prosecutor in a case filed against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Girish Mahajan in Pune. The court that the state government has cancelled Chavan’s appointment and appointed him in the latter's place. He also placed on record the notification of his appointment issued by the state government dated July 21. As per court records, Chavan had been appointed in the case since 2016 and had last appeared for the same during a hearing held earlier this month on July 8. The case relates to an FIR filed by Dahisar police in 2015, which was later transferred to the CID, to probe allegations including charges of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Kadam and others for allegedly misappropriating funds of Lokshahir Annabhau Sathe Magasvargiya Vikas Mahamandal. On March 8, Fadnavis had submitted video recordings which he claimed ran into 125 hours and alleged that they contained proof of a conspiracy being hatched by leaders of the MVA to frame BJP leaders in false cases in the state. Chavan had called the allegations against him baseless. Then Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil had in March informed the assembly that a probe will be conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the allegations raised by Fadnavis. The change in the government has also resulted in change in other appointments including special public prosecutor Pradip Gharat last week being removed from the case against BJP member Mohit Kamboj related to an alleged bank fraud.
