No action will be taken against Vishwas Patil yet, says Bombay HC

Mumbai: The Bombay high court was on Thursday informed that no coercive action would be taken against retired Thane collector Vishwas Patil till next Wednesday, that is when his petition challenging the ACB court order comes up for hearing again.

The special ACB court recently directed the ACB to register a case of corruption against Patil. According to complainant Hiten Yadav’s lawyer, Aditya Pratap Singh, as the collector of Thane district, Patil had transferred a government land situated in Malad east in favour of Development Company in which Patil's wife Chandrasena was the director. It was also alleged that extra FSI was given for this project. The complainant sought an FIR be registered against Patil and others for conspiring to hand over government area as free sale plot, where Kanakia is constructing a luxury project. In a slum rehabilitation scheme, 44 per cent extra land was given to the Kanakias, alleged Yadav’s lawyer Aditya Pratap.

Senior counsel Amit Desai, on behalf of Patil, argued that the ACB court does not have power to issue directive to register FIR against a government official and Patil has not committed any crime because the decision for the project had been taken by the SRA and Patil only obeyed the order as it was duty to do so.