MUMBAI: Spelling trouble for Mumbai Congress chief Kripashankar Singh, the Bombay High Court Wednesday ordered police to file an FIR against him for corrupt activities and attach properties belonging to him and his family members, a lawyer said.
A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Roshan Dalvi also directed Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik to investigate the matter and submit his probe report to the court by April 19, said lawyer Mihir Desai, representing the petitioner, social activist Sanjay Tiwari.
The court has asked police to initiate the action against Singh under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court's order came during the hearing of a PIL filed by Tiwari last year, who had alleged that Singh had amassed crores of rupees disproportionate to his known sources of income.
He had also sought to link Singh, a Congress legislator from Kalin constituency in suburban Mumbai, with Madhu Koda, a former chief minister of Jharkhand, arrested on charges of corruption and money-laundering.
The judges said that the PIL and the report submitted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau to the court should be treated as a FIR.
Despite repeated attempts by IANS, Singh could not be reached for his comments as he was not answering both his mobile phones.
A former minister of state for home, Singh has been under fire since last week for the Congress party's miserable performance in the recently concluded elections to BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).