Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar
The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court quashed the case and chargesheet against nine individuals, ruling that the prosecution failed to establish that the complainant, a forest officer, was carrying out duties within the legal framework or that the accused obstructed government work. The bench, comprising Justice Vibha Kankanwadi and Justice Rohit Joshi, declared the alleged incident doubtful and unreliable.
What happened?
On May 8, 2023, Conservator of Forests Sangeeta Madhe and her team were heading towards Chinchkheda Khurd in Kannad Taluka after receiving information about a leopard sighting. During their journey, they allegedly spotted some individuals illegally excavating 0.09 hectares of murum (soft rock) from forest land near Saint Janardan Maharaj Namsadhana Ashram. The complainant claimed that upon trying to stop the JCB (excavator), the driver dumped the murum and parked the tractor in a cowshed. The forest officials then seized the JCB and the tractor. The next day, the accused allegedly snatched mobile phones from four forest guards who were assigned to guard the seized vehicles and smashed them on the ground. Following this, a case was registered in Kannad against nine individuals under multiple sections, including obstruction of government work.
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Case reaches high court
Seeking relief, Rajendra Folane and eight others filed a criminal petition through Advocate Pooja H. Tayade in the High Court, requesting the dismissal of the case and chargesheet. The petition highlighted key discrepancies: The exact role of each accused was not specified in the complaint. No site panchnama (inspection report) was conducted. The police were not immediately informed. The forest officers failed to prove under which law they seized the tractor.