High court rejects case against Vilasrao Deshmukh

The Bombay high court on Wednesday dismissed a petition that sought for an offence to be registered against former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for interfering with police procedures. The petition was filed by ex-journalist Ketan Tirodkar.

The division bench of justices BH Marlapalle and UD Salvi rejected the petition observing that, “The Supreme Court has decided on the petition and if the petitioner wants to press his prayers, it will have to be somewhere else.”

The petition had also prayed for recovering Rs10 lakh from Deshmukh which the apex court had imposed as fine on the state government, which was later paid. Last December, the Supreme Court had imposed a fine of Rs10 lakh on the Maharashtra government following allegations that Deshmukh, during his tenure as CM, had misused his power and interfered in investigations of a criminal case involving his relative, MLA Dilip Sananda.

Tirodkar in his petition had sought that Deshmukh be made an accused in the case against Sananda. The state government has appealed against the order by filing a review petition which is pending.

Referring to the Supreme Court order passed by the court said that, “The apex court had cleared in their order that Deshmukh’s directions given to the collector to not take action against the Sananda family was set aside. The court in its order had not directed a separate offence to be registered against Deshmukh.”