Bombay HC bench recuses itself from hearing Adarsh PILs

Mumbai: A division bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday recused itself from hearing a bunch of PILs in Adarsh scam case and also the application of former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan who has sought quashing of the corruption case against him.

"Not before us," a division bench of Justices SA Bobde and RG Ketkar said on Tuesday when the PILs came up for hearing. The bench, however, did not assign any reasons for recusing itself from hearing the matter.

The bench, which has been hearing the Adarsh matter since several months, recused itself after senior counsel Amit Desai mentioned the application filed by Ashok Chavan seeking quashing of a corruption and cheating case registered against him by the CBI for his alleged role in the scam.

The bench recused itself after Ashok Chavan filed an application seeking to quash and set aside the CBI FIR against him.

When Desai told the court that he was being assisted by other lawyers from Federal and Rashmikant legal firm, Justice Bobde said, "I cannot hear it then."

The entire Adarsh matter, which includes PILs filed by social activists Simpreet Singh and Pravin Wategaonkar seeking court supervision into the CBI probe, affidavits filed by Maharashtra government and Adarsh society challenging CBI probe into the matter, will now be referred to another division bench by the Chief Justice of the High Court.

Chavan had filed an application on Monday seeking to quash and set aside the CBI FIR against him on the ground that CBI has no jurisdiction to probe the matter as neither the high court nor the state government has consented for probe by the central agency.

The former chief minister had also claimed that he has been wrongly named in the FIR as the part of a political conspiracy to keep him away from public affairs.

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