The bench was hearing a petition filed by the state government against the MAT order of August 12, 1999, wherein MAT Chairperson S D Pandit had set aside the state government order of April 1999 transferring the officials, including a woman sub-inspector. They are: Shamsher Khan Vazir Khan Pathan, police inspector, Missing Persons Bureau, Crime Branch, CID, Moosa Mohiyuddin Shaikh, police inspector, Goregaon police station, Hitendra Manohar Vichare, Crime Branch, CID and Surekha Baburao Kapile, police sub-inspector, Airport Security.

In his order, the MAT chairperson had found that the transfer orders were punitive and directed that thestate allow them to resume at their respective posts in their respective police stations within two months. At the court today, counsel for the state, S H Gurshahani argued that the MAT order, even after the state government had shown the files that the four police officials had links with the underworld, was wrong and deserved to be set aside. Arguing for Pathan, senior counsel K K Singhvi stated that the MAT order could not be faulted because no such allegations had been made by the state government in the affidavit filed. The allegations of underworld links were only forwarded across the bar and hence was never on record. The bench, however, agreed with the the state government counsel's contentions and stayed the MAT order. But on an application by Singhvi, the order as far as the transfer order of Pathan was concerned, was stayed till October 27, allowing him to approach Supreme Court.

Early this year, the state had transferred around 20 police officials out of the city for their alleged links withthe underworld. Of these, 12 had approached the MAT, of which eight officials' cases had been finally decided by MAT. Earlier, the HC bench of Justice A V Sawant and Justice R J Kochar had stayed a similar MAT order in the case of two sub-inspectors Pratap Bhonsle and Ravindra Shinde. In this case, the bench had seen the records again and had taken them on record.