Mumbai, Jul 28 A special court here on Tuesday acquitted a city-based builder in a 44-year-old case of manipulating land measurement records to obtain a higher Floor Space Index (FSI), citing lack of evidence.
Special judge Shayana Patil, hearing cases under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, ruled that the prosecution has failed to prove any offence against Chaitanya Laxmidas Vora, the sole surviving accused facing trial in the case.
The case against his co-accused, maintenance surveyor Kedu Pandurang Bhalerao and builder Laxmidas Hargovinddas Vora, was abated following their deaths in 2024.
Three other persons initially named in the FIR had died during the investigation.
As per the prosecution, the alleged offence took place between February 1980 and December 1982.
However, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) registered the FIR only on October 3, 1992. The chargesheet was subsequently filed 24 years later on May 7, 2016.
The prosecution alleged that Bhalerao, a public servant, conspired with the builders and an architect to fraudulently increase the area of a property in Vile Parle from 1,179.6 square meters to 1,249.9 square metres.
The 5.9 per cent increase in the plot's area was orchestrated to secure a higher FSI and undue benefits for the builders, the prosecution said.
The trial in the case commenced this year, but the prosecution could only examine three witnesses in total.
Several witnesses were reported untraceable or dead by the time the trial began, the order said.
The original complainant, former police inspector Ramkrishna Gosavi, could not testify as he has been suffering from dementia since 2001, it said.
The judge noted that since Vora was a builder and not a public servant, charges of criminal misconduct under the PC Act don't apply to him.
The court also pointed out that the prosecution failed to produce the original revenue records or prove that any specific document was forged to alter the plot's area.
