Mumbai, Oct 02: Taking strong exception to accused influencing the judiciary, Justice Vijaya Tahilramani of the Mumbai High Court has refused to hear the bail petition of the prime accused in the multi-crore answer paper scam. When the matter came up for hearing before Justice Tahilramani on September 30, the judge said in the open court that the wife of petitioner Avinash Sanas had approached her at her residence and tried to influence her to grant bail to the accused.
This, the judge said, is a serious matter and hence she would not like to hear the bail plea of the accused.
The judge referred the petition to Chief Justice C K Thakker and urged him to assign the matter to another judge. Avinash, a former Secretary to a Maharashtra minister, has been arrested in the answer paper scam that rocked Maharashtra Public Service Commission. A Class I employee of state government, he had allegedly played a major role in the scam.
Anti-Corruption Bureau had recovered duplicate keys from his house and obtained statements from witnesses about his role in the scam. He also allegedly had links with the co-accused and dismissed deputy municipal commissioner of Thane civic body Vishwanath Kelkar. Avinash had urged the court to grant him bail as he had been in custody since last one year.
According to ACB, 24 accused in this case had connived to substitute answer papers of 399 candidates who had appeared for 1999 written tests for the posts of Mantralaya assistants, police sub-inspectors and sales tax inspectors. Bureau Report