Pune Land Deal: Is police protecting deputy CM's son Parth? asks HC

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday questioned the Pune police whether they were "protecting" Parth Pawar, son of Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar in the Pune land deal case."Is this the case where the deputy CM's son is involved," enquired a single bench of Justice Madhav Jamadar during the pre-arrest bail plea hearing of Sheetal Tejwani, an accused in the case. As prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh affirmed, Justice Jamdar further asked, "Is the police protecting the son of the deputy CM and only investigating the other. You are investigating everyone but the one person who you should be investigating, you are not calling him?" asked the court.

The prosecutor responded that their probe was going on and they were doing their investigations. The HC's observations are significant as after the Pune land deal scam broke out, the Maharashtra Opposition and social activists have questioned why Parth has not been named in the FIR.

In November, an FIR was filed against Amadea company, owned by Parth, who had purchased 40 acres of prime land in Pune, valued at Rs 1,800 crore at just Rs 300 crore. Tejwani had tried to do a deal with Amedea company claiming that she had the power of attorney from the seller.