The Bombay High Court has quashed multiple First Information Reports (FIRs) and subsequent criminal proceedings against former Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) Sanjay Pandey, senior advocate Shekhar Jagtap, and other high-ranking police officials. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam dismissed the cases on Wednesday, characterizing the criminal proceedings as an “abuse of the process of law” prompted entirely by “personal grudges.”
In its reasoned order, made available on Thursday, the court observed that the allegations leveled against the petitioners were entirely “vague and lack particulars.” The bench further noted that the speculative claims had already been proven false in light of a ‘C’ Summary report filed by the police.
Background of the Case and Allegations
The legal battle stems from multiple complaints filed in 2024 by businessman Sanjay Mishrimal Punamiya. Punamiya alleged a wide-ranging and massive criminal conspiracy involving former DGP Sanjay Pandey, senior advocate Shekhar Jagtap, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sardar Patil, and Inspector Manohar Patil.
According to Punamiya’s complaints, the accused individuals allegedly forged Jagtap’s appointment letters in 2021 to falsely project him as a special public prosecutor in several extortion and fraud cases. Punamiya claimed this forgery was executed specifically to keep him in prolonged judicial custody.
Furthermore, the businessman asserted that the state’s police machinery was actively misused to pressure him into implicating former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh, alongside various political figures. He claimed that Pandey and other officials coerced him into making false statements by threatening to unlawfully reopen dormant cases and fabricate new, false FIRs to trap him.
Punamiya also alleged a highly specific instance of coercion while he was hospitalized. He claimed that police officers, acting on direct instructions from Pandey, pressured him to falsely implicate the then Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Eknath Shinde (who was the Chief Minister at the time) in an Urban Land Ceiling scam in exchange for dropping the pending charges against him.
The Court’s Analysis and Observations
Upon reviewing the facts, the Bombay High Court rejected Punamiya’s allegations, pointing to the complainant’s own extensive criminal background and history of litigation. The court noted that Punamiya himself was deeply embroiled in a web of criminal cases involving extortion, coercion, and the theft of confidential state documents, which had generated deep-seated enmity between the parties.
The bench identified the complainant as a “habitual litigant” and highlighted that proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, had already been initiated against him in a separate appeal he had filed.
Evaluating the nature of the complaints, the High Court observed:
“The allegations in both the crimes…….are outcome of a desperate and vengeful mind and the second respondent seeks a fishing inquiry into a matter which does not require any inquiry at all.”
The court emphasized the necessity of protecting the judicial system from being weaponized for personal vendettas, stating:
“the process of law cannot be misutilised for oblique purposes and a criminal proceeding which is manifestly attended with malafide can be quashed.”
The Decision
Concluding that the initiating of multiple FIRs against the former DGP and other officers was a clear “abuse of the process of law,” the High Court ruled in favor of the petitioners. The bench officially quashed the FIRs and all criminal proceedings arising from them, bringing an end to the disputed prosecution.
