Bombay High Court orders probe after BJP's Kirit Somaiya procures order copy in case to which he was not party

The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the principal district judge of Pune to conduct an enquiry to find out how BJP leader Kirit Somaiya managed to procure a copy of an order passed by a magistrate in a case to which Somaiya was not a party to the proceedings in any manner [Hasan Mushrif v. State of Maharashtra & Anr.]. .The order in question was passed by the magistrate, issuing process against accused in a case where Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Hasan Mushrif has been booked.It was contended by Mushrif that Somaiya had tweeted about the order of the magistrate, while Mushrif himself had to wait to receive the certified copy of the order.A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Sharmila Deshmukh observed that it was a “serious matter” and directed the district judge to find out how a non-party to the proceedings got a judicial order's copy without applying for certified copy and when the copy of the order had not been uploaded on the official court website. “The manner in which the order was secured, we direct a principal district judge to inquire as to how said order was made available on same day and whether the same could have been made available without issuing certified copy of said order,” the High Court directed.The High Court asked the district judge to conclude the inquiry and inform the bench about the details of the same by next month..The direction from the bench came on a plea filed by Mushrif seeking quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered against him in Kolhapur on charges of cheating,Mushrif stated that there was a “deliberate attempt” to take action against him in Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases.“Somaiya has been making false and frivolous allegations against the petitioner and in fact predicting the actions taken by various law enforcement agencies especially the ED, with an oblique intention of getting the Mushrif arrested in any manner possible,” Mushrif’s petition stated. .Senior Advocate Abad Ponda pointed out that Somaiya had received the order copy and tweeted it even before Mushrif got it. Ponda also pointed out that the FIR copy was immediately made available to Somaiya despite him not being party to proceedings and same has not been uploaded on police website till date. Mushrif himself got a copy of the FIR from Somaiya’s tweet."Perusing the tweets, it is evident that order issuing process passed by the magistrate was put up by Somaiya on the same day. Admittedly Somaiya is not a complainant," the High Court noted..The bench noted that entire copy of the complaint by Kulkarni had been put up in a tweet by Somaiya along with a copy of the magistrate order. The Court also noted that Somaiya seemed to have obtained a copy of the FIR the very next day after the registration of FIR.Taking exception to this, the Court asked the additional public prosecutor Jayesh Yagnik to file an affidavit explaining how Somaiya got the FIR copy and if it was uploaded on the government website and when it was done..Meanwhile, in his plea, Mushrif argued that the FIR was lodged against him so that investigation on the scheduled offence would commence.The bench posted the matter for further hearing on April 24, issued notice to the complainant and directed Maharashtra police to not take any coercive action against Mushrif till further orders."It also appears that the complaint was lodged without complying with the mandate of the Supreme Court judgement in Lalita Kumar v Union of India case. We direct the police to not file chargesheet against petitioner. No coercive action against petitioner till further orders," the bench said.