Adarsh scam: Court rejects CBI's plea to drop Ashok Chavan's name as accused

Jan 18,  3:43 PM In a setback to Maharashtra's former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, a special court today rejected the CBI's plea to drop his name from the list of accused in the Adarsh Housing Society scam case. While dismissing the plea, CBI court judge S G Dighe said even though Governor K Sankaranarayanan had rejected CBI's plea for sanction to prosecute Mr. Chavan, he could be tried under the Prevention of Corruption act as he has been accused of criminal misconduct. The judge will pass a detailed order later in the day. In the course of arguments, Special Public Prosecutor Bharat Badami said there was no provision under the law to appeal against the Governor's denial of sanction but the agency can request him for a review of his decision if it has additional evidence against Mr. Chavan, which was not the case. The CBI had on January 15 filed an application to allow it to remove Mr. Chavan's name from the list of 13 accused charge-sheeted in the case, citing the Governor's decision, which it said was "non-appealable". The court had reserved its order on the application for today.