The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court on Thursday asked Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the Treasure Island mall scam case, involving former chief minister Digvijaya Singh, and report back within six months.The order was passed by the division bench of Justices P K Jaisawal and Moolchand Garg, said advocate Dr Manohar Dalal, counsel for petitioner Mahesh Garg.
According to advocate Dalal, the HC asked the CBI to probe, among other things, the "roles of senior officials, the then chief minister, and chief secretary, and environment minister".
Social activist Garg had filed a complaint with the state Economic Offences Wing in 2009 in this regard. The EOW filed a first information report tagainst Entertainment World Developers Pvt Ltd, which constructed Treasure Island mall on the MG Road in Indore, in a joint venture with the Madhya Pradesh Housing Board in 2002.
The allegation was that the mall was illegally built on a residential plot of one-lakh
square feet, with undue concessions from the state government.
The EOW conducted a probe against twelve accused, including Digvijaya Singh, former chief secretary A V Singh, former MP Housing Board Chairman Chandra Prabha Shekhar, former Principal Secretary U K Samant and developers Prem Kalani, Manish Kalani, and Padma Kalani. It later filed closure report, giving clean chit to Digvijaya Singh, while saying there was a case against six others including the developers.
When contacted, Manoj Singh, superintendent of police, EOW, and Additional Advocate General Manoj Diwevedi told PTI they had not received the judgment copy, and could not comment on it.
