In a setback to Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan, the Bombay High Court today refused to drop his name from the Adarsh housing case chargsheet. The Central Bureau of Investigation -CBI had filed an application before the court seeking permission to delete Mr. Chavan's name as an accused from the charge sheet. The application was filed by CBI in the Bombay High Court in April this year. It had stated that the then Governor of Maharashtra had refused permission to prosecute Mr Chavan in the Adarsh scam. But, Justice M. L. Tahiliyani dismissed CBI’s application and issued this order via video conferencing from Nagpur. Justice Tahilyani however, allowed staying the order for a period of four weeks on CBI’s plea to challenge this order in Supreme Court.
In these weeks, the lower court which is hearing the Adarsh case will not be able to initiate any proceedings against Mr. Chavan in particular, during the trial. Ashok Chavan had been named along with 13 others in the FIR filed by CBI on Adarsh Housing Society Scam. The 10,000-page charge sheet had named Chavan as one of the accused along with several army officials and bureaucrats. All the accused had been charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating and under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Adarsh scam had fuelled a political storm in Maharashtra leading to the resignation of Ashok Chavan as Chief Minister.
