Bombay High Court dismisses CBI plea to drop Ashok Chavan's name in Adarsh case

MUMBAI: In a huge setback to former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, the Bombay High Court has rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation's plea to drop his name from the list of accused in the Adarsh housing society case. Justice ML Tahilyani rejected the order after CBI approached the court to drop Chavan as an accused. A special trial court hearing the Adarsh case had earlier rejected the CBI petition.

CBI wants to drop Chavan as an accused as then Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan rejected CBI’s request to prosecute Chavan in the case. Justice Tahilyani suspended his order for four weeks for CBI to appeal against it. CBI has said that it would appeal against the order. Tahilyani’s order on Thursday, however, has done enough to damage Chavan’s political career.

"The party had finalised his name for the post of the Maharashtra Congress chief, his name was to be announced this week, the party was only waiting for the Bombay High Court to accept CBI's plea and discharge Chavan. If Chavan would have been made the Maharashtra Congress chief, then his political rehabilitation would have been complete," said a senior Congress leader. Chavan's political fortunes have been on the downswing since 2010 after the Adarsh scam broke out. He had to quit as CM and was replaced by Prithviraj Chavan. He was named in a CBI charge sheet after the agency began investigating the case.