Special Court Discharges Cabinet Minister Chhagan Bhujbal in Maharashtra Sadan Scam

Special Judge HS Satbhai also discharged then Public Works Department Secretary Devdutt Marathe and four others. The court hadearlier discharged five others in the Scam.

The ACB filed a case against Bhujbal and 15 others in 2015 regarding a slum re-development contract on RTO land to the firm - K S Chamankar Enterprises, without inviting tenders in 2005, when Bhujbal was the Public Works Department Minister. The ACB alleged that Bhujbal's family received approximately Rs. 13 crore in kickbacks.

For ACB, Special Public Prosecutor Ajay Misar appeared while Bhujbal was represented by Senior Advocate Prasad Dhakephalkar along with Advocate Sajal Yadav & Advocate Sudarshan Khawase.

The prosecution strongly opposed the discharge applications. However, original complainant activist Anjali Damania was not allowed to intervene.

While discharging the developer and other co-accused, the court held that there was no prima facie material showing the meeting of the minds of all the public servants. The court had denied that it was illegal to hand over the project to the developer without inviting tenders.

Bhujbal's counsels argued there is no loss to the State, and the allegations were based on wrong calculations, assumptions & presumptions. Despite the voluminous charge sheet running into thousands of pages filed in 2016, there isn't sufficient evidence to proceed with the trial.

The Cabinet Infrastructure Committee decided to award the contract in a meeting headed by the then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. Many other ministers and senior bureaucrats were present, he argued.

Additionally, Bhujbal claimed he had no role in selecting the developer as slum dwellers appointed them in 1998. Neither was there any material on record in any form to suggest that Bhujbal got illegal gratification.

Based on the ACB Case, Bhujbal is also booked in another case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which the Enforcement Directorate investigated.

Case

The ACB alleged that the builder got rights to develop a slum on RTO land in Andheri, with the condition that the Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi, an RTO building in Andheri and a guest house on Malabar Hill would be constructed in return.

The firm alleged entered into an agreement with another company for the work and later sold development rights of the RTO to a construction company.

A detailed order is awaited.