The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by former Ambedkar Nagar MLA Pawan Pandey seeking quashing of criminal proceedings against him in an alleged land fraud case. The court ruled that it could not conduct a “mini-trial” at the pre-trial stage and declined to interfere with the ongoing prosecution.
A single-judge bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi observed that evaluating the merits of the charges at this stage would be premature and would deny the prosecution its opportunity to lead evidence before the trial court.
The case stems from allegations that Pandey, along with his associate Mukesh Tiwari, attempted to illegally claim land worth crores of rupees belonging to a widow and her son, Ajay Singh. According to the prosecution, Tiwari produced a forged sale agreement dated August 25, 2020, allegedly executed by Ajay Singh, who later died on October 23, 2020.
Further, a woman named Neetu Singh was introduced into the matter, purportedly to strengthen the fraudulent claim. She asserted that she had married Ajay Singh on the day of his death at an Arya Samaj temple.
During the hearing, Additional Advocate General V.K. Shahi opposed the quashing plea, arguing that the investigation had revealed Pandey’s role as a key conspirator. Shahi emphasized that the court could not conduct a detailed examination of evidence at this stage.
After reviewing the case materials, the bench concluded that a prima facie case had been made out against Pandey. “The detailed evaluation of merits of the charges cannot be done by this court at this stage by holding a mini-trial and that too, without giving an opportunity to the prosecution to prove its case by leading evidence before the trial court,” Justice Vidyarthi noted in the order.
With this, the court upheld the continuation of the criminal proceedings against the former legislator.
