Bombay HC refuses to drop charges against Ashok Chavan

In a new twist in the sensational Adarsh scam, former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan suffered a setback when the Bombay High Court rejected the petition of the CBI to drop his name from the list of accused in the politically sensitive case.

Chavan, 56, currently the Congress MP from Nanded, had to resign in November 2010 as chief minister. He  was replaced by Prithviraj Chavan.

Justice M L Tahilyani, who rejected the plea of the CBI, however, stayed implementation of his order for four weeks to allow the apex investigative agency to file an appeal against the judgment. “I am inclined to reject the petition,” the judge said in a one-line order delivered through teleconference from Nagpur where he now presides over a bench of the Bombay High Court.

The CBI charge sheet had listed him as an accused, while the two-member Commission of Inquiry comprising Justice (Retired) J A Patil, a former judge of the Bombay High Court, and P Subramanian, had accused him of “quid pro quo” and “political patronage”.

The CBI had to petition the Bombay High Court to drop Chavan’s name as an accused as former governor K Sankaranarayanan had turned down the plea of the CBI for sanction to prosecute him.

The former Maharashtra chief minister’s mother-in-law Bhagwati Sharma, sister-in-law Seema Sharma and father-in-law’s brother Madanlal Sharma have flats in the society.