HC stays FIR, probe against HDIL and SRA officials

In a relief to real estate major Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL), the Bombay High Court has stayed a lower court order asking police to conduct a probe against the company with regard to alleged irregularities in a slum rehabilitation authority (SRA) project.
The anti-corruption bureau filed a first information report on December 2 against the company and SRA officials for irregularities in an SRA scheme at Motilal Nehru Nagar in suburban Bandra in 2005-06 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The High Court stayed the FIR too.
HDIL had moved the High Court challenging the FIR and the lower court order ordering the probe.

A division bench of justices Ranjit More and Anuja Prabhudessai earlier this month granted relief pending final disposal of the petition, noting that FIR names two senior SRA officials, and in such cases, as per a Supreme Court ruling, government's sanction is necessary.
The next hearing of the case would be on January 19.
The FIR was registered against the principal secretary (housing) Debashish Chakrabarty, principal secretary (woman and child development) Ujjwal Uke, HDIL group chairman and the company's ten directors. At the relevant time, Chakrabarty and Uke were with SRA.
According to the complainant, though he owned a tenement in the area, he was not allotted a shop after the area was redeveloped and there were some irregularities.