Appeal dismissed against arrest of Chhota Rajan aides under MCOCA

Mumbai, Nov 10 (UNI) The Bombay High Court today dismissed the appeal of two Chhota Rajan aides against the arrest under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

A division bench comprising Justices J N Patel and R S Dalvi held that once MCOCA was applied to a case, all the offenders taken into custody in the matter were automatically applied with MCOCA and the same did not require a fresh sanction from the Commissioner of Police.

The two accused-Vinod Asrani and Pradeep Madgaonkar-- had appealed to the court challenging their arrest under MCOCA in the extortion case.

The defence counsels Shirish Gupte and Sushil Kumar contended that the two had been arrested after the application of MCOCA on Chhota Rajan's wife Sujata Nikhalje, his brother Prakash Nikhalje and three others on December 14 in extortion case from a builder. While the Commissioner's sanction comprised the names of these five accused, Asrani and Mama were not included in the sanction.

However, Chief Government Pleader Satish Borulkar and Additional Public Prosecutor D Mhaispurkar opposed the defence, contending that MCOCA had been applied not only to the five persons but to the entire case. Therefore any accused arrested under this case would automatically be applied with MCOCA. The arrests made later would not require a fresh sanction from the Commissioner of Police.

UNI ARM PM RL PM2018