Fadnavis deposes in court, refutes all charges by Uke

Nagpur: Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis deposed before Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) court here on Saturday as an accused and rejected all the allegations levelled against him by lawyer Satish Uke.
The complainant had accused Fadnavis of failing to mention summary case no. 232 of 1996 (u/s 500 of IPC — defamation) and regular criminal case no. 343 of 2003 under various sections of IPC, which were pending before the JMFC, in his election affidavit filed before the 2014 assembly polls.
According to Uke, who is now behind bars on charges of money laundering by the Enforcement Department (ED), these two cases were filed against Fadnavis in 1996 and 1998 for alleged cheating and forgery, and he had furnished a PR bond of ₹3,000 in one of them.
The deputy CM, who was attending inauguration and groundbreaking functions of Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation (MRIDC) Limited’s projects at Ajni on Saturday, left early to attend the court hearing after finishing his speech.
According to Fadnavis’s lawyer Uday Dable, he arrived at JMFC court at about 1pm and stayed inside for over one hour. He was presented with a questionnaire containing 104 questions. “Himself being a lawyer, he read and wrote answers to each of them carefully in consultation with lawyers to avoid any controversy,” said Dable.