PTI, MUMBAI: In a relief for former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, the Bombay High Court today quashed and set aside Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao’s sanction granted to the CBI in 2016 to prosecute the senior Congress leader in the Adarsh Housing scam. A bench of Justices Ranjit More and Sadhana Jadhav held that the sanction granted by the governor could not be “sustained” since it was not based on any fresh material produced by the CBI that could be considered as plausible “evidence” by courts during trial.
“It was permissible for the Hon’ble Governor (Rao), the sanctioning authority in the present case, to review or reconsider the earlier decision of the erstwhile governor’s (his predecessor Governor K Sankaranarayanan) decision not to grant sanction, since the CBI claimed that some fresh material had surfaced after the earlier sanction was refused,” the bench said.
