Maha: ED searches residence of Nagpur-based lawyer who filed petitions against Fadnavis

Nagpur: The ED is conducting searches on Thursday at the house of a Nagpur-based lawyer, who has filed several petitions against senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis in the last few years, a police official said.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) began searching lawyer Satish Uke's house located in Parvati Nagar area of the city around 6 am amid tight security by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), he said.

The Mumbai unit of the central agency is conducting searches in connection with some land transactions, the official said.

Uke has filed several petitions in courts against BJP leaders, especially former Maharashtra chief minister Fadnavis. In one of his applications, he had sought criminal proceedings against Fadnavis for the "non-disclosure" of criminal cases in his election affidavit. Uke has alleged that the BJP leader filed a false affidavit in 2014 by hiding two criminal cases - of cheating and forgery - registered against him in 1996 and 1998.

The lawyer had also petitioned the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court seeking a police probe into the "suspicious and untimely" death of CBI judge B H Loya. Judge Loya, who was presiding over the trial in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh alleged fake encounter case, had died reportedly due to a heart attack in Nagpur in 2014.

Uke is also the lawyer of Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, who has filed a Rs 500 crore defamation suit in a civil court here against IPS officer and former state intelligence chief Rashmi Shukla and others for alleged illegal tapping of his phone.