Maharashtra: Lawyer Satish Ukey, who filed case against ex-CM Fadnavis, booked under MCOCA

Nagpur lawyer and activist Satish Ukey, known for his criticism of PM Modi and the BJP, has been booked under the MCOCA along with six others for land forgery.

NAGPUR: On Tuesday, Nagpur-based lawyer and social activist Satish Ukey, who is now lodged in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, was booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA). Six others were also booked under the draconian Act.

ED had on March 31 arrested Satish Uke and his elder brother Pradip. HT File Photo

Ukey was in the news when he lodged complaints with the Election Commission and filed a petition before the local court against former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for suppressing information about his criminal cases in his 2014 election affidavit. A vocal critic of PM Narendra Modi and the BJP, the Nagpur-based lawyer was also in the news when he raised doubts about the “mysterious” death of Judge B H Loya and demanded an SIT probe into it. Justice Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, in which Amit Shah was an accused, allegedly died of a heart attack in 2014 in Nagpur, where he was attending a wedding.

Ukey and six others were booked under the MCOCA on Tuesday after the divisional engineer of the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Pankaj Patil, filed a complaint against them. It was alleged that they had forged documents pertaining to land that was originally owned by one Vitthal Dhawale and later declared excess by the government. Subsequently, it was allotted to NIT, a local urban development authority, and since the 1990s has been owned by the civic authority.

The others booked in the case include Satish’s brother Pradip Ukey, his wife, Madhavi, Shrirang Housing Cooperative Society president Subhash Manilal Baghel, Chandrapekhar Namdevrao Mate and two other family members of Ukey, Pekhar Mahadevarao Ukey and Manoj Mahadevarao Ukey.

Commissioner of police Amitesh Kumar informed HT that after getting a formal complaint from the NIT in January this year, the Ajni police had booked Ukey and the others under various sections of cheating, forgery and fraud under the Indian Penal Code. “We have now booked them under MCOCA,” he said, adding that the Nagpur police had registered 13 cases against Ukey and his brothers so far.

Last year, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Ukey and his brother Pradip in a money laundering case of over ₹11.5 crore connected with a land grab case in Nagpur. Both have been in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai since April 2022.