The Bombay high court on Thursday advanced the hearing on the anticipatory bail applications filed by four municipal corporators from Thane district.
The corporators have approached the high court as the police registered an FIR against them for allegedly driving builder Suraj Parmar to commit suicide.
The high court had on November 3 granted interim protection from arrest to Sudhakar Chavan (Independent), Vikrant Chavan (Congress), Hanumant Jagdale and Najeeb Mulla (NCP) and posted the matter for hearing on December 2.
However, on Thursday the state government through special public prosecutor Raja Thakre approached the court seeking some modifications in the order and also requested the court to advance the hearing because it was a sensitive case and the four corporators were facing some serious allegations.
Mr Thakre also said that the charges of corruption have to be investigated expeditiously and their custodial interrogation was required.
Acting on the state’s request, Justice Ravi Deshpande changed the date of hearing from December 2 to November 23.
It may be recalled that Parmar, a leading builder, shot himself on October 7. His suicide note alleged that a nexus of corporators and officials were harassing him for bribes. Though he had written the names of the corporators who harassed him he struck off the names later, fearing they would harm his family members after his death. However, the police sent the suicide note to the Forensic Science Laboratory and the FSL report revealed the names that Parmar had written. The police then registered an FIR against the corporators.
The contention of the applicants is that Parmar has written various reasons for committing suicide, including that it was his mistake he did not pay anything to ‘officers’. The applicants argue they are not officers but corporators.
Earlier, the Thane Sessions court had rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of these four corporators.
