HC says no to CBI probe sought over clean chit to Bishnoi

The Bombay High Court today refused to direct CBI to probe into alleged malpractice due to which IPS officer K L Bishnoi cleared his LLB exam without appearing for practicals and also against other policemen who had conducted an inquiry and gave a clean chit to him.
A division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and S B Shukre was hearing a petition filed by Chitra Salunkhe, former vice principal of Siddarth Law College, seeking a CBI probe against Bishnoi and other IPS officers for allegedly shielding him.
Earlier, the High Court had directed former Director General of Police, K Subramanium to conduct an inquiry into it. The DGP gave a clean chit to all the officers but recommended advisory note to be issued to two of them for non-application of mind and casual approach while dealing with complaints filed by Salunkhe against Bishnoi.

However, soon after the report was submitted, Salunkhe sought CBI inquiry alleging that the DGP inquiry was just an "eyewash".
The court today, however, observed that the inquiry conducted by the former DGP was not dis satisfactory. "We do not find any substance in the allegations of the petitioner. We found nothing in the report which would warrant us to direct for CBI investigation," Justice Dharmadhikari said.
The court further held that it does not find the DGP inquiry report "perverse or erroneous in law" and hence to falsify it at this stage was unwarranted.

According to Salunkhe, Bishnoi had cleared his final year LLB examination with the help of then acting principal I A Inamdar, without appearing for the practical examination held on March 12, 2005.

On Salunkhe's complaint, seven IPS officers had conducted an inquiry into the matter. After Bishnoi was given a clean chit, Salunkhe approached the high court seeking action against the senior cops for submitting "false" reports.
Besides Maria, the other officers who faced inquiry were Additional Director Generals of Police Pankaj Gupta and Mohan Rathod, Additional Commissioner of Police Sanjay Saxena and three Deputy Commissioners of Police - Naval Bajaj, Brijesh Singh and Vishwas Nangre-Patil.