The Bombay high court asked the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit within a week explaining the basis on which it had filed a closure report in a case of alleged forgery and cheating in land deals exposed by the murdered whistle-blower Satish Shetty. “On what basis have you (police) come to conclusion that no offences have been attracted under IPC in this case ” asked judge M.L. Tahiliyani. The court was hearing a CBI petition seeking to quash a magistrate’s order accepting the police’s closure report. The Central agency sought reinvestigation into the land deals. CBI counsel H.R. Venegaonkar said huge tracts of land were acquired by the state from villagers near Lonavala for the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which became operational in 2002. However, these lands were fraudulently sold in bogus deals by IRB Developers, he said. The court asked the government to file an affidavit explaining how the officers had concluded the probe and filed a closure report. It also asked the state to include the details on “sale deeds” of the land acquired by them, revenue records and letters from revenue authorities in respect of these transactions. During the pendency of the matter, Shetty was killed by unidentified people in 2009. His murder is being probed by the CBI. Its counsel argued that the murder could be linked to the fraudulent deals exposed by him and hence it was seeking re-investigation.
