Dawood Ibrahim brother's case: HC fixes December for final hearing

The Bombay high court posted the hearing of the state government’s appeal against the acquittal of Iqbal Kaskar, brother of wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, in an illegal construction case, for final hearing in December.

Five years ago, the government had appealed against the acquittal in the high court which had admitted and kept it for hearing which was to come up in due course.

Kaskar moved an application for setting a date for hearing the appeal on Thursday. He said, “Whenever my children or I apply for a passport, the application is rejected on the grounds that an appeal is pending against me in the high court.”

A division bench comprising Justice VM Kanade and Justice PD Kode allowed the plea and posted the hearing for December 3.

Kaskar was tried under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for a criminal conspiracy to construct shopping malls called Sara-Sahara on government owned land at the behest of his brother and underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim.

The MCOCA court had acquitted Kaskar, builder Ghulam Nabi Tanwar and four officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Kiran Achrekar, Narendra Rajbhar, Hasmukh Shah and Shirish Salvekar in 2007.

However, three others  — Tariq Parveen, Abdul Rehman Abdul Gafoor Shaikh and Abdul Sattar Haji Jinabhai Radhanpura — were convicted. They were charged with pressurising the occupants to vacate the premises for building the malls illegally.