Hight Court reopens rape case against ex-minister, Laxman Dhoble

Rape accused Laxman Dhoble

Former NCP state minister Laxman Dhoble is under the scanner once again for a 2014 rape case, and this time, the Mumbai Police is in the dock with him as well. Two years after the women's cell of the crime branch gave a clean chit to Dhoble, the Metropolitan Magistrate Court yesterday hauled up the investigators for their shoddy probe into the case.

According to the complainant, a senior clerk at a Borivli law college, Dhoble raped her repeatedly between 2011 and 2013. Dhoble is the chairman of Shahu Education Society, which runs the college. The 42-year-old plaintiff alleged that Dhoble first raped her in the college office, and several times thereafter. He allegedly threatened to remove her husband from his job at the college. Scared, she changed her residence and cell phone number, but Dhoble traced her and called her again, threatening to circulate lewd pictures he had taken of her.

A very long clean chit
The complainant eventually registered a complaint against Dhoble at the Borivli police station under IPC Sections 376 (rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation). As the police station did not have a women officer to investigate, the case was transferred to Goregaon police station, and then to the Women's Cell of the Crime Branch. The police gave a clean chit to Dhoble in 2016, filing a 1,783-page B-summary report. A B-summary report is filed by the police when they judge a case to be false or frivolous. The Women's Cell stated that there was no solid basis to the allegations against Dhoble. Following this, the complainant moved the court for justice.

The court asked the investigating agency to present the evidence collected, and concluded that proper investigation had not been carried out. The judge observed, "No proper investigation was carried out by the investigating agency. Testimony of the accused is reliable, but testimony was also taken of servants working in the college, who naturally wouldn't go against the accused."

The judge ordered that the case be re-investigated. Manjula Vishwas, the lawyer representing the complainant, said, "We have demanded that the investigation officer be changed. The officer is biased and is helping the accused. The accused is so influential that every case registered against him has resulted in a B-summary. We want a new investigation officer to take charge and probe under the court's observation."

The other side
Dhoble told mid-day, "My lawyer has informed me about the re-investigation order, but I cannot comment until I go through the order copy."