The Maharashtra government had last week issued orders to transfer two cases to the CBI.DAYS AFTER the newly formed state government transferred a case to the CBI concerning leak of sensitive call recordings from the State Intelligence Department (SID), the Union government approached a special court on Monday seeking to withdraw its appeal against a court order, which had directed the Union Home Secretary to give access of documents to investigators.
The Maharashtra government had last week issued orders to transfer two cases to the CBI. One of the cases pertained to an FIR registered in March last year under the Official Secrets Act by the Mumbai police against unknown persons. The FIR was registered after then leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis alleged lobbying by IPS officers with politicians of the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for postings in exchange of money. Fadnavis had then said in a press interview that he had handed over documents linked to the case to the Union Home Secretary. The previous state government had then approached a Magistrate’s Court seeking directions to the Home Secretary to share the documents with the investigators of the case. The court had in December allowed the previous government’s plea stating that the Home Secretary was in possession of the documents and a pen drive handed over by Fadnavis, and directed for those to be handed over to the investigators.
The Home Secretary then approached the special court with an appeal stating that the application seeking documents filed by the state government was vague and did not establish nature of the documents sought. Since January, the matter has been coming up for hearing but was not decided on so far.
On Monday, lawyer Shreeram Shirsat representing the Union secretary informed the court that the case has been transferred to the CBI and sought for the appeal to be disposed of. The court posted the case for hearing on Tuesday when the lawyer for the respondent, the Cyber police that was probing the case previously, will remain present.
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Following the change in power in the state, besides two cases, including a probe against BJP leader Girish Mahajan, being transferred to the CBI, the appointments of special public prosecutors in some cases have also been changed.
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