A division bench of Justice A V Sawant and Justice S S Parkar allowed Diwekar, through his counsel Shirish Gupte, to withdraw the petition after the bench indicated that they will have to examine the merits of the case in details. Nevertheless, in their order, the bench has recorded the actions of the IAS officer who had moved the Guwahati High Court when a fax message from the Mumbai CBI branch was sent to him when he was stationed at Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.

The case on behalf of the CBI was fought by Additional Solicitor General D Y Chandrachud who argued that the petitioner, who was officiating as the Collector of Daman in the absence ofthe collector during the period of October 1992 to April 1993, had on the last working day at this office, granted as many as 13 applications for non agricultural (NA) permissions.

The applications were received between 17 March 1993 and 23 March 1993. According to Section 32 (3) of the Goa, Daman and Diu Land Revenue Code, 1968, permissions are deemed to have been granted on the expiry of 90 days from the application. However, not withstanding this clause, the petitioner was alleged to have granted the NA permissions on April 8, 1993, without following the procedures of getting reports from the Deputy Conservator of Forests and other officers.

According to the CBI, Diwakar, who was to give charge to the regular incumbent on April 12, had worked on these permissions on April 8, since April 9 was a holiday owing to Good Friday, 10th April a second Saturday and April 11th a Sunday. Chandrachud argued that April 8, itself, the collector had given permissions to sell the NA lands. It was alleged that none ofthe procedures that included getting No Objection certificates from the Town Planning, Forest and Public Works Departments had been followed.

In fact, in respect to five cases, it was alleged that No Objection certificates for the lands were received from the deputy conservator of forests as late as on April 16, 1993, where it transpired that April 16th was turned to April 6, by removing the figure 1.

Eventually, all the 13 NA permissions were revoked by the collector and all the lands were treated as agricultural lands. Meanwhile, Diwekar who was transferred to Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh was sent a fax message from the CBI that he was wanted in Mumbai in connection with the investigation. However, on the ground that he received his fax in Itanagar, he moved the Guwahati High Court, which then quashed the FIRs.

The CBI then moved an appeal in the apex court which held that the Guwahati High Court had erred in entertaining the petition on the question of jurisdiction and held that the petition atGuwahati High Court could not be entertained. The apex court, thus, in an order of May 1999 set aside the orders passed by this High Court.

Diwekar then again moved a petition seeking to quash the FIRs in the Bombay High Court before the bench of Justice A V Sawant. Accordingly, when the bench indicated that they would be going into the details of the case, the adage `Discretion is the better part of valour' prevailed and the petitioner sought to withdraw the petition. This was granted by the court and the petition was accordingly dismissed.