Nagpur district court granted bail to former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The bail was granted vis-à-vis alleged non-disclosure of criminal cases pertaining to the years 1996 and 1998 in his election affidavit in 2014 state assembly elections. In a court application filed by city advocate Satish Uke, he claimed that Fadnavis should have stood disqualified for contesting 2014 elections.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate PS Ingle gave Fadnavis a last chance to appear before the court after the former CM was granted exemption from personal attendance on four occasions since November 2019.

The senior BJP leader was granted bail on a personal bond of Rs 15,000. He was also ordered by the court to be present in all the hearings subsequently. The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for March 30.

Addressing media persons amidst tight security in the court today, Fadnavis said, I deliberately didn’t conceal any case in my 2014 election affidavit; it was my lawyers decision at that time. All the cases against me had arisen out of my struggle for people. There’s no personal case against me. And the two cases (in 1996 and 1998) were settled long back, when I won both the elections by over 50,000 votes.

During the hearing, senior counsel Sunil Manohar, lawyer Uday Dable, former Guardian Minister of Nagpur Chandrashekhar Bawankule and BJP MLC Parinay Fuke were also present.

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