Mumbai: A sessions court on Thursday discharged state cabinet minister and senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, his son and former MLA Pankaj Bhujbal and nephew and former MP Sameer Bhujbal, all co-accused in the Maharashtra Sadan scam case of 2015.
Along with the Bhujbals, five other co-accused, including a former public works department (PWD) secretary also got a clean chit from the court. By the end of July, the court had discharged five accused in the case, of the total 17 accused.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) that probed the case had alleged that the senior Bhujbal, who was then deputy chief minister and PWD minister, had conspired with some officials of the PWD to get a contract in favour of a developer. The ACB claimed a false report was used to downplay the profits to be made by the developer in the project and while he made a profit of 365.33 per cent, it was shown as merely 1.33 per cent. The chargesheet had also alleged that the contract was given without inviting tenders. Chhagan Bhujbal, it claimed, received kickbacks for the favour.
Arguing for discharge of the Bhujbals, Advocates Sajal Yadav and Prasad Dhakephalkar had told the court that there was no loss to the state exchequer as alleged and that calculations were based on assumptions and presumptions. There was no sufficient evidence to proceed with the trial. It was also argued that Chhagan Bhujbal had no role in selection of the developer and that at the meeting in which the decision was taken, the then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and several senior bureaucrats were present. There was no material to suggest that he had got any illegal gratification, they contended.
A detailed order is awaited. In its order discharging five co-accused in July, the court had said that the FIR in the case was based on an improper report and was ill-intentioned and filed in haste. Further, it stated that instead of seeking the opinion of an expert in the field as required by procedure, the informant, an ACP in the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Narendra Talegaonkar, had himself made arithmetic calculations and concluded that a loss had been caused to the state government in the contract.
