The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday arrested former Delhi high court judge Shameet Mukherjee from his residence in Zakir Hussain Marg in New Delhi on Wednesday in the Delhi Development Authority land scam case.
The anti-corruption unit of the CBI had raided 11 places in New Delhi this morning and scanned through thousands of papers before arresting Mukherjee. He would be produced before a designated CBI judge in Delhi on Thursday.
The places raided included the official residence of Justice Mukherjee and his two houses in Chitaranjan Park in south Delhi. Other places raided by CBI included four houses of Dharam Vir Khattar, a property dealer and prime accused in the case, two residential premises of Vinod Khatri, a hotel owner, and the office and residence of advocate Anshu Aggarwal.
Mukherjee had been dealing with DDA cases during his tenure. Files containing drafts of judgments were recovered from Ashok Kapoor, former assistant to deputy chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, and Khattar's residence during the raids.
The CBI has registered cases against Justice Mukherjee under sections of the Anti-corruption Act, 1988 and sections of the Criminal Procedure Code for criminal conspiracy. Similar cases were also registered against sacked DDA vice-chairman Subhash Sharma, Khattar, Khatri and Kapoor.
Sharma had earlier been arrested in the scam for favouring Modern Public School in Shalimar Bagh and seeking illegal gratification from the school authorities.
Justice Mukherjee had denied his involvement in the scam and tendered his resignation from judgeship on March 31. But he had said his resignation was due to his wife's 'indifferent health'. On April 3 he sought to withdraw his resignation, but by then President of India Dr A P J Abdul Kalam had accepted it.
