CBI to re-investigate the complaint of alleged land-grab filed by slain RTI activist
11 Aug, 2014The Bombay High Court permitted the CBI to reopen and investigate the complaint of alleged land-grab filed by Satish Shetty against Virendra Mhaiskar, Chairman and Managing Director of Ideal Road Builders (IRB) Infrastructure Developers Limited.
Hearing a petition filed by CBI, Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode of the Bombay High Court allowed the CBI to conduct the investigation. The agency wanted to take over probe in the land grab case on the ground that it could be related to the murder of Shetty and had approached the state government and the High Court seeking permission for the same. While the government counsel sought some more time as the government had still not decided whether to hand over the probe to CBI, the bench gave the verdict.
· In October 2009, RTI activist Satish Shetty filed a complaint with the Lonavla city police against 13 people, including Mhaiskar and a sub-registrar in which an allegation of land grab was made. As per the complaint, the land acquired by the government for the Mumbai-Pune expressway, was re-sold by the original owners to an IRB Group company.
· In September 2011, the local police filed a closure complaint saying that the police did not find any evidence to substantiate the allegations.
· The CBI approached the State government in March, 2014 seeking the permission to probe. The agency suspects that the complaint by Shetty against the company and senior government officials had led to his murder in on January 13, 2010, when he had gone out for a morning walk.