Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday quashed a first information report (FIR) and proceedings against former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey and other accused of trying to get the informant, Sanjay Punamiya, to falsely implicate chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, and retired IPS officer and former Mumbai police chief Parambir Singh in an urban land ceiling scam in exchange for dropping charges against him in a case.The HC bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam held that the very registration of the FIR was an abuse of process of law.Pandey’s petition says, admittedly, he and Punamiya never met or spoke.The FIR filed by Sanjay Punamiya alleged that several accused conspired and coerced him to give false statements in 2021. The FIR against Pandey was filed on Aug 26, 2024, with the Thane police station.The FIR was filed after a delay of over three years after the alleged incident, “which exposes the inauthenticity of its contents,” said Pandey’s petition, argued by senior counsel Mihir Desai. He said the FIR was only to “target” him.The FIR makes out no case, the petition contended. The FIR was against several accused, including advocate Shekhar Jagtap, who also successfully filed quashing petitions against it.Senior counsel Rajesh Shakhdhar for Jagtap argued that the FIR was an interference in the administration of justice.Punamiya, represented by counsel Rizwan Merchant, claimed that he was subjected to false charges in multiple cases and was wrongly made an accused in a re-investigation of a Thane Nagar police station case after five years in a 2016 case. He alleged that Jagtap was not appointed special public prosecutor in the 2016 case but, allegedly in collusion with two other accused, misled the Thane court, resulting in rejection of his (Punamiya’s) bail.Punamiya’s counsel sought a stay of the judgment for two weeks to enable him to go to the Supreme Court. The HC declined to stay its judgment.The other accused who also petitioned the HC and got similar relief were Jagtap, Shyamsundar Agrawal, Sardar Patil, Kishor Bhalerao and Manohar Patil.
