HC directs CBI to file progress report in Jalgaon Murder case

Mumbai, Sept 10 (UNI) The Bombay High Court today directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file within four weeks the progress report into the investigations of Prof V G Patil murder case in which involvement of Dr G N Patil, brother of President Pratibha Patil, has been suspected.

A division bench comprising Justices R M S Khandeparkar and V K Tahilramani granted the CBI another four weeks time to complete investigations as Solicitor General Goolam Vahanvati, appearing for the CBI, sought more time to complete investigations, saying that the concerned officer had to simultaneously shoulder responsibility of investigation into another case.

The Solicitor General informed the court that the CBI has been scheduled to conduct lie detector tests on one of the arrested accused at Delhi and the investigation may be properly directed after results of the tests.

Rajani Patil, wife of the slain Congress leader and then Jalgaon District Congress Committee President, had moved the high court seeking court's control over CBI investigations into the case. She had alleged that Dr Patil, brother of President Pratibha Patil, was the mastermind behind her husband's murder and despite specific statements of one of the two arrested accused, the CID and thereafter the CBI too, failed to arrest and question him.

Prof Patil was brutally murdered on September 11, 2005 in Jalgaon. Rajani Patil had alleged that Dr Patil, who was defeated by Prof Patil in the District Congress Committee presidential elections in April 2005, and Dr Ulhas Patil, a former Congress MP from Jalgaon and another rival of the late Professor in the intra-Congress politics, had given a 'supari' to kill her husband. The actual assailant, one Raju Mali was arrested in the case but died under mysterious circumstances, while in judicial custody.

UNI