Orders issued to serve notice on police over theft at Saibaba Sansthan

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court comprising Justice M S Patil and S P Brahme issued directives to serve a notice to the police administration over the theft of electric materials of Rs 61 lakh at the Electrical Department in Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust.

The next hearing has been placed on May 9, 2024.

On obtaining information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, one Sanjay Kale made a complaint. Shri Saibaba Sansthan did an internal audit. The amount of theft reached Rs 81 lakh during the audit.

Kale sought an audit report again under the RTI and lodged a complaint with the Shirdi Police Station of the town and later, the superintendent of Police of Ahmednagar. However, no notice of the complaint was taken by the police administration.

Therefore, he filed a criminal petition to register a case.

“The amount of irregularities may be more than Rs 1 crore. However, the incharge account officer of Saibaba Sansthan Sahebrao Lanke who had a direct connection with irregularities submited an audit report to the chief executive officer of the Sansthan, hiding it.

The chairman of the Trust and Principal District Judge had directed to keep Lanke away from internal audit and send him to his original department. Despite this, Lanke prepared an audit report of the electrical department in haste by tampering with the documents,” it was mentioned in the petition. Advocates Pradnya Talekar, Ajinkya Kale and Vishaka Patil appeared for the petitioners.