Mumbai/Pune, Dec 15: In a day of fast paced developments in the multi-crore fake stamp paper probe, the Maharashtra government today urged the Mumbai High Court to order the transfer of investigations to CBI, while the plea of Dhule MLA and accused Anil Gote to attend the ongoing assembly session in Nagpur was turned down by a division bench here. In a related matter, a special court allowed the plea of special investigating team to conduct P-300 known as brain finger-printing test, narco-analysis and lie detector tests on nine accused, including prime accused Abdul Karim Telgi, in magisterial custody.

Taking the government's petition for transfer of probe to CBI on record, Chief Justice C K Thakker and Justice Abhay Oka said they would decide the matter on December 17 after hearing CBI and other petitioners who had filed PILs challenging lop-sided probe into the scam. The petition, filed by the Advocate General Goolam Vahanvati, pleaded that the state had no objection if the probe was handed over to CBI as most of the legislators as well as Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Governor of the state Mohammed Fazal had expressed a strong desire to transfer the investigations.

The petition said Advani had communicated a request to Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde asking the latter to hand over the probe to CBI as the accused involved allegedly had links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and ISI and hence the case had national and international ramifications. Even the Governor had written a letter to Shinde expressing a similar view. Bureau Report