A public interest litigation (PIL) on Wednesday urged the Bombay High Court to issue a direction to the Maharashtra government to transfer to CBI the probe in the high-profile cases of suicides by builders in recent times.
The PIL, filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar, said many real estate developers have committed suicides in recent past as they were fed up with alleged extortion by municipal officers and police. The PIL referred to media reports about recent suicides committed by top builders in Mumbai and Thane and demanded that such cases be probed by an independent agency like CBI.
The petition said, Ajay Choradia, a real estate developer from Pimpri near Pune, killed himself in 2014 and wrote a suicide note blaming the "culprits."
Another developer Suraj Parmar from Thane shot himself dead recently. The State cited a bank transaction of Rs 1 crore benefitting an NCP MLA while opposing anticipatory bail plea of the accused corporators. However, the transaction "disappeared" during the investigations, the PIL alleged.
The PIL cited another instance of Amar Bhatia of Mohan Group who was found dead on rail tracks of Badlapur, a central railway suburb near Mumbai, recently. Bhatia was preparing to take his family out for an evening when, as per police version, he messaged his uncle his intention to commit suicide and walked to the railway track. He had been expressing his agony with the authorities on Facebook page for a few months, the PIL said.
All these instances point at alleged harassment of the victims by the government staff, the PIL said and demanded that probe in such cases should be transferred to CBI. The petition would come up for hearing in due course.
