The father of a 23-year-old woman who fell to death from a Pune building has moved the Bombay High Court seeking to be heard before any order is passed on a plea demanding a police probe into the death, allegedly linked to a Maharashtra minister.
The woman fell from the balcony of her house in February 2021 and was declared dead at the hospital. BJP leader Chitra Wagh had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the high court in 2021, seeking a first information report (FIR) on the death of a Pune-based woman in 2021, which she alleged was linked to state Minister Sanjay Rathod.
Rathod had denied allegations
Rathod, who was a minister in the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government, had resigned following the incident after the then opposition BJP sought to link his name to the death.
Rathod, who had denied the allegations, is now with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and is a minister in the ruling Mahayuti government, which the BJP is a part of.
The deceased's father has filed an application in the high court.
On Tuesday, advocate Pranav Badheka mentioned the application before a division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar, seeking an urgent hearing.
Badheka said the woman's father was not seeking relief, but the family was being maligned.
"The applicant (father) has no grouse or complaint against anybody. This PIL is politically motivated. The applicant has four daughters, and every time the issue comes up in the media, they face problems in their matrimonial homes," Badheka told the court.
The court said it would hear the application on September 2.
Wagh, in the PIL, claimed the police had failed to lodge an FIR in the case and sought for the probe to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The plea had claimed that the deceased's phone had audio recordings of her and a man just before her death.
When Wagh's plea came up for hearing before the high court last week, public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar informed the court that the deceased woman's mobile phone was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) along with the concerned person's voice samples.
It was found that the voice on the said calls was not identical to the person's actual voice, Venegaonkar submitted.
