CBI clean chit to IRB Infra on RTI activist murder

Investigative agency says it has not found any incriminating evidence against the suspects, which include Ideal Road Builders Infrastructure

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a closure report in its probe of the January 2010 murder of Pune-based Right to Information activist Satish Shetty, in the Bombay High Court on Monday.

The agency has not found any incriminating evidence against the suspects, which include Ideal Road Builders Infrastructure (IRB), a top CBI official told Business Standard. The firm’s chairman, Virendra Mhaiskar, was under the CBI’s scanner for the murder.

Shetty, a well-known whistle-blower who exposed several land scams in Maharashtra, was murdered near Talegaon near Pune in 2010. In 2012, the Bombay High Court handed over the murder case to the CBI following a petition by Shetty’s family members.

The company’s involvement with the case was due to IRB’s acquisition of around 1,100 acres of land near the Mumbai-Pune Expressway between 2007 and 2010. The land was acquired for real estate development purposes. This was one of the causes for which Shetty had been crusading and earned the ire of builder mafia.

Shetty was digging into the possibility of land-grabbing from farmers along the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. He had engaged in collecting evidence and even filed a complaint with the Inspector General of Registrars (IGR) about scores of illegal land registrations in Badgam and Maval. On October 15, 2009, Shetty lodged a case against IRB chief Virendra Mhaiskar and 12 others, including government officials for land grabbing. In November 2009, he sought police protection, fearing danger to his life. However, he was shot dead two months later, in January 2010. After a slow probe by the Pune police, the matter was handed over to the CBI.

The IRB stock closed at Rs 245 on the BSE on Monday. In a related development last week, the Bombay HC referred a case of land dispute investigated by the local police to the CBI on the request of the investigative agency. This case is also allegedly said to have some relation with the murder case of Shetty. If new evidence comes to notice, the CBI will re-open the case.