In a relief to senior Congressman Ashok Chavan, the Bombay High Court on Friday quashed and set aside the sanction accorded by Maharashtra Governor C H Vidyasagar Rao to prosecute him in the Adarsh housing scam.
"In the absence of fresh material, the sanction cannot be sustained, and is quashed and set aside," a division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice Ranjit More and Justice Sadhana Jadhav said.
Chavan, 58, who in November 2010, had to resign as the chief minister, is among 14 retired and serving defence personnel, bureaucrats and politicians named as accused in the scam by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
"The charges against me were baseless and politically motivated," said Chavan, who is currently the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).
Chavan is the son of former Maharashtra chief minister and ex-Union Home Minister late Shankarrao Chavan.
The 31-storey Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society Ltd is located Colaba, a plush locality in Mumbai. It was originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil War heroes and their kin but was later extended to 31 floors allegedly without mandatory permission.
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