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Synopsis

NCP Founder Sharad Pawar has approached the Bombay High Court to be impleaded in a Criminal Public Interest Litigation filed by Advocate Nanasaheb Yadav seeking a CBI probe against Sharad Pawar.

The PIL filed by Yadav seeks a CBI probe against NCP founder Sharad Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, and Member of Parliament Supriya Sule over alleged illegal permissions for the construction of a private hill station at Lavasa in Pune.

Yadav had earlier, in February 2022, filed a Civil Public Interest Litigation in the high court against the said private hill station, which was disposed of by a division bench headed by Former Chief Justice of the high court and current Supreme Court Judge Dipankar Datta.

In the earlier petition, the high court had refused to intervene in the case but noted that there seemed to be exertion of influence and clout by Sharad Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule in the project.

In the present criminal PIL, Yadav stated that in 2018 he had filed a complaint with the Pune Police Commissioner, but no action was taken by the police.

When the criminal PIL came up for hearing today before the division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor, Senior Advocate Joel Carlos, appearing for Pawar, submitted that the issue was already adjudicated upon.

“The entire premise on which the complaint is filed by the petitioner has been dealt with by the high court and disposed of. The petitioner cannot use the same facts for filing another proceeding styled as criminal public interest litigation,” Carlos said.

He informed the bench that the earlier civil PIL was disposed of by the high court, against which the petitioner had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court which was still pending.

Carlos added that Yadav had not disclosed the complaint in the earlier PIL and was filing a fresh criminal PIL based on the 2018 complaint.

The high court granted two weeks for Yadav to file his reply to Pawar’s intervention application and posted the matter after 4 weeks.

Case title: Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar vs Nanasaheb Vasatrao Yadav