The Bombay High Court has dismissed a PIL seeking an investigation into Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule, and Ajit Pawar over alleged illegal permissions for the Lavasa project. The court ruled that no case was made out against the leaders.
The Bombay High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that called for a police investigation or a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, and others regarding alleged illegal approvals for the construction of a private hill station in Lavasa, Pune.
The division bench, consisting of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam A. Ankhad, heard the case filed by lawyer Nanasaheb Jadhav.
Earlier, On December 16, after concluding the hearing, the court indicated that the petitioner needed to present adequate evidence to support his claims, which was not demonstrated in this instance.
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Additionally, the court highlighted that Jadhav had previously submitted a similar petition, which was dismissed in 2022 due to its late submission, coming nearly ten years after the project had begun.
In his latest PIL filed in 2023, Jadhav mentioned that he had lodged a complaint with the Pune Police Commissioner in December 2018, which was subsequently forwarded to the Pune Rural Police. He discovered in May 2022, through a Right to Information (RTI) request, that no First Information Report (FIR) had been filed.
He also noted that when he sent the same complaint to the Pune Rural Superintendent of Police under Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), no action was taken. Jadhav alleged that the police were unwilling to register an FIR because the case involved prominent politicians, prompting him to request a CBI investigation.
He argued that there is no time limitation for lodging complaints with the police when the alleged crime carries a maximum penalty of seven years or more.
In September 2023, another bench of the high court informed Jadhav that he could pursue a private complaint before a magistrate if the police did not file an FIR, remarking that while political influence might affect police actions, it would not impact the magistrate.
Senior Advocate Aspi Chinoy and Advocate Joel Carlos, representing Sharad Pawar, contended that the allegations in the current PIL were similar to those in the previous petition, justifying its rejection as well.
A bench led by then Chief Justice Dipankar Datta (now a Supreme Court judge) declined to intervene in the earlier PIL filed by Jadhav, which sought to declare the special permissions granted for the project as “illegal.”
The court however noted “personal interest” in the project by Sharad Pawar and Sule, along with their “exertion of influence and clout” pertaining to it.
The court also remarked that Ajit Pawar, who was the irrigation minister at the time, “failed to disclose the direct or indirect interest and was found to be remiss in his duty only to that extent.”