Maharashtra Sadan case: Court discharges Chhagan Bhujbal, his son, nephew

In 2015, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had registered a case against 11 persons alleging that a developer was favoured in awarding the contract for development of the RTO land in Andheri along with construction of Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi and an RTO building in Tardeo in south Mumbai

A special court on Thursday discharged Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal, his son Pankaj and nephew Sameer from the Maharashtra Sadan corruption case.

Representational image. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Bhujbal had argued that there was no evidence of any irregularities or corruption against him as the then public works minister and deputy chief minister.

Special judge HS Satbhai also discharged Tanveer Shaikh, Iram Shaikh, Sanjay Joshi, Geeta Joshi, directors in various companies, and Deodatta Marathe, the then public works department secretary.

In 2015, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had registered a case against 11 persons alleging that a developer was favoured in awarding the contract for development of the RTO land in Andheri along with construction of Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi and an RTO building in Tardeo in south Mumbai.

In a recent order, the special court had discharged five persons, including the developers booked in the case, stating that there was no ground to proceed against them regarding the charges of corruption, cheating and criminal breach of trust etc.

Those discharged earlier included Arun Deodhar, a public works engineer, and directors of developers K S Chamankar Enteperises, who were booked for criminal conspiracy with the public servants for loss to the government.

The ACB had alleged that at the instance of Bhujbal a meeting of ministers was arranged and secured the contract for a specific developer. Bhujbal had, however, claimed that there were no irregularities in awarding the contract.

The court said there was no material prima facie to indicate that there was a meeting of minds of all the public servants and that they hatched a plan to prepare a status report favourable to the developer. In the meeting, several senior bureaucrats were present and it was difficult to accept that they were all misled into causing losses to the government.