The court also rejected another petition filed by Avinash

Sanas, accused in the 2001 MPSC scam, making same allegations of Poojari having links with underworld and seeking his prosecution under MCOCA. The court rejected the petitioner's plea to ask the Maharashtra Government to accord sanction to prosecute Poojari under the stringent law of MCOCA and section 197 of CrPc. The PIL had alleged that police had in their possession a CD which had recorded telephonic talks of Poojari with the underworld. The judges noted that a special MCOCA court, dealing with the private complaint filed by MPSC accused Avinash Sanas on the same issue, has already dismissed the said complaint vide order dated November 6, 2004. The judges noted the Mumbai Police Commissioner in his report on October 28, 2004, has recorded his subjective satisfaction that no prima facie case was made out from the material placed before him to indicate involvement of Poojari for the alleged offence under MCOCA. Therefore the special court had taken the view that the complaint against Poojari cannot proceed for want of sanction. "In any case, that order cannot be permitted to be challenged by way of PIL. The subtle attempt of the Petitioner is to keep the accusation made against Respondent No 7 (Poojari) pending for reasons best known to them. "That would inevitably help the accused named in the MPSC examination scam. Any observation made with regard to the factual matrix referred to in the present petition would inevitably help the accused persons named in the said offence," the court said. "We are more than convinced that the present petition is a subterfuge and an attempt to create gloss in the guise of PIL by using the screen of so called NGOs. It is intriguing as to how these NGOs got access to voluminous official documents filed along with the successive PIL, running into around 500 pages and incidentally, filing the petitions through the same Advocate," it observed. "We are inclined to accept the argument of the state that the banner of NGOs is being used to invite finding of this court which may be useful for the defence of the accused in the MPSC examination scam case, which is pending trial, by attacking the integrity of Respondent No 7 (Poojari) who was the investigating officer of that case," the court said. (More)