New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the CBI's response on a plea of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan against a Bombay High Court order refusing to delete his name from the list of accused in the multi-crore rupees Adarsh housing society scam case.
The High Court had refused to recall its earlier order by which it had denied deletion of Chavan's name from the list of accused.
A bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar, which has now posted the matter for final disposal on July 21, issued the notice to the CBI which his been investigating and prosecuting the accused in the case.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Maharashtra, said Chavan has not "annexed the trial court's
speaking order" in his appeal. Senior advocate and former Law Minister Kapil Sibal, appearing for Chavan, said that once the charge of criminal conspiracy goes, the allegation against him cannot be sustained under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Chavan had on April 13 moved the apex court against the Bombay High Court decision in the case. Besides Sibal, former External Affairs Minister and senior lawyer Salman Khurshid is also representing their party colleague Chavan.
"I have a problem with the impugned order. The special Judge states that the cognizance of the offence (against Chavan) has not been taken. The High Court states that the cognizance has been taken," Sibal had said.
The High Court's order that cognizance of the offence has already been taken is "erroneous" in taking judicial note of the crime, he had said, adding that a trial court "will have to issue process (summon)", which was not done.
Sibal said a separate plea, challenging constitutional validity of section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, under which Chavan is also charged, is pending with the apex court on the ground that it can be invoked without the accused having 'mens rea' (intention to commit an offence).
The plea challenging the validity of the PC Act provision was recently filed by Hindalco Industries Ltd in a coal block allocation case in which former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was also made an accused. The apex court had later stayed the trial court proceedings in the matter.
Earlier, the High Court had dismissed Chavan's appeal to recall an earlier order refusing to delete his name from the Adarsh Housing Society scam case.
Chavan had filed the plea in the High Court in December 2014 seeking to recall an order passed by it refusing CBI the permission to drop his name from the Adarsh case. The HC order refusing to recall the earlier ruling had paved way for Chavan's prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly misusing his official position to grant favours to the Adarsh society, meant exclusively for defence personnel.
The CBI had first approached the trial court seeking to drop Chavan's name as an accused on the ground that the Governor had refused to sanction his prosecution. As the CBI court rejected it, the agency moved the HC.
However, the High Court had dismissed CBI's application in November 2014 after observing that the Governor had refused sanction for prosecution for conspiracy charge under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but he can still be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The chargesheet not only alleges conspiracy but also refers to Chavan's individual acts when he was the Revenue Minister and later the Chief Minister, HC judge had said.
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