PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa on Wednesday, declined to quash the FIR of land grabbing lodged against MGP MLA and chairman of the Goa Tourism Development Corporation Jit Arolkar.
In its order, the High Court ruled that it would not wish to interfere with the investigation, which the court observed was at an advanced stage.
“At this stage, we are not inclined to exercise the discretion for the simple reason that it is not considered proper to scuttle the investigations carried out by SIT at this advanced stage. Similarly, it is not considered as a rarest of rare case as discussed by the Apex Court,” the High Court bench of Justices MS Sonak and BP Deshpande, ruled.
“We make it clear that once the investigation is complete and if the chargesheet is filed, the petitioner would be having an opportunity to apply for discharge in case such material is not found sufficient to frame charge,” the High Court also said.
“Only because the petitioner belongs to some political ideology, which is opposing the present government, it cannot be said that such acts which were going on since the year 2013 can be ignored only on the specious premise of targeting the petitioner. He admittedly claimed to be a businessman involved in property transactions,” the Court also said.
Arolkar has since joined the government after the MGP expressed support to the BJP led coalition government, though he was elected after defeating the BJP candidate to the chair.
Adv Aires Rodrigues on 4th July last year had filed a complaint on behalf of Rawloo Khalap with the Special Investigation Team at Crime Branch giving details of the land grabbing by the Mandrem MLA. Jit Arolkar in March last year was elected on a MGP ticket and is now supporting the ruling government having been appointed as Chairman of the Goa Housing Board.
Adv Rodrigues in his complaint stated that Jit Arolkar grabbed the land and created over 200 plots in the property while illegally and fraudulently executing sale deeds with third parties and selling the entire property in connivance with Pernem Revenue officials.
“In this case the investigation is advanced and it is not proper for this Court to discuss the material collected by the investigating agency for the purpose of exercising the powers under Section 482 of CrPC for the simple reason that it would amount to a mini-trial,” the High Court said.
