As Ashok Chavan quits Congress, a look at the three cases pending against him

The third is a case of alleged land grab filed against 15 people, including Chavan, in Yavatmal. Here too, there has been no progress for many years. The ACB filed an FIR in 2011 on various charges, including cheating, criminal conspiracy, and forgery under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The initial list of suspects in the case contained 13 names, including that of the former CM.

Adarsh cases

In the case filed by the ACB, the CBI began an inquiry after it received a complaint from the Ministry of Defence alleging that land in Colaba was illegally allotted for the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society through the abuse of public positions and fabrication of documents. The FIR alleged Chavan was the Revenue Minister of the state in 2000 and entered into a conspiracy with other accused and proposed to add civilians as members in the society “with an ulterior motive”.

The society was first proposed to be for those in the defence forces or their kin. Chavan had to step down as Chief Minister in 2010 following the allegations. He, however, contested the claims and denied any favours were made nor illegal steps were taken to grant clearances to the society.

In a relief to Chavan, on December 22, 2017, a Division Bench of Justices Ranjit V More and Sadhana S Jadhav quashed and set aside an order passed by then Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao granting sanction to the CBI to prosecute the former CM in the Adarsh Housing Society scam case. It held that the order by the then Governor “cannot be sustained” and “entertained at a pre-trial stage since the same was passed without there being a fresh material”.

The CBI in 2018 appealed this order in the Supreme Court, which is still pending. In separate proceedings, Chavan had earlier also applied for his name to be deleted from the case before the trial court — it rejected the plea in 2014. Separate pleas by Chavan appealing the order were also rejected by the High Court in 2014 and 2015. He then approached the Supreme Court. In January 2018, the SC Bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S K Kaul stayed proceedings in the CBI case pending before a special judge in Mumbai. The stay is still in place and no progress has been made in the case. The court has yet to take cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the CBI.

The ED, too, filed a case in 2012 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. No arrests were made in the case and no chargesheet was filed. On April 29, 2016, the High Court ordered the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to immediately demolish the 31-storey building. The Bench directed the Centre and state government to consider initiating appropriate civil or criminal proceedings against the concerned bureaucrats, ministers and politicians as per law, “for committing various offences in acquiring the subject plot as also misuse and/or abuse of powers”.

On a request made by the Adarsh Housing Society, the Bench, however, stayed its order for 12 weeks to enable an appeal to be filed before the Supreme Court. The SC in July 2016 refused interim relief to the housing society and asked the Directorate of Military Estate of the Centre to take possession of the land and the building till the pendency of the appeals, which are not yet decided. The Centre assured there would be no demolition till the apex court decided the controversy.

Yavatmal case

In the case filed in Yavatmal, on June 26, 2015, a Division Bench of Justices A B Chaudhari and P N Deshmukh of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court dismissed the petition by Chavan and others in a case of alleged encroachment by the Jawaharlal Darda Education Society on an open public space in Yavatmal.

The Bench dismissed a criminal application by Chavan and others challenging the verdict of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Yavatmal who ruled the encroachments as illegal. The magistrate also ordered FIRs to be filed, as sought by an RTI activist.

As per the complaint, the education society constructed an English medium school and a huge compound wall in the early 1990s on about 1,000 square metres of land that belonged to plot owners of the area for public utility.

The High Court held that a probe must be carried out since it had been delayed for about four years. Noting that the applicants were “highly influential persons”, the court asked the state Home Department to appoint a high-level officer to supervise the probe and complete it within four months. It noted, “The applicants have procrastinated the investigation for all these years without any justification. God only knows when the entire encroachment will be removed to give respite to these common people.”

Lawyer S N Tatwawadi — representing the complainant, RTI activist Digambar Pajgade — said the report was not submitted and there has been no progress in the case.