The case originated in 2007 amid a dispute linked to a redevelopment project at Kalachowky

Mumbai: Nearly 20 years after a criminal case was filed alleging a conspiracy to kill a builder in a redevelopment dispute, the Bombay High Court has accepted the State CID’s ‘B-Summary’ closure report in the matter involving Shreepati builder managing director Rajendra Chaturvedi.It said that investigators found no material against the accused and that a Magistrate’s earlier refusal to accept the closure report went against the evidence gathered during the probe.A division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata, in an order dated July 27, allowed a writ petition filed by Chaturvedi and a criminal revision application filed by the State CID. The court quashed and set aside the January 30, 2013 order of the Metropolitan Magistrate, 10th Court, Andheri, and accepted the B-Summary report submitted by the State CID, Konkan Bhavan, Navi Mumbai.The case originated in 2007 amid a dispute linked to a redevelopment project at Kalachowky, said to be worth around Rs 500 crore. Chaturvedi had contended that he was falsely implicated in a case alleging a plot to eliminate rival builder Rashmikant Shah.As per the allegations in the initial case, Juhu police in February 2007 intercepted four men near the Holiday Inn hotel in Juhu and claimed they had been hired to kill Shah. The police had alleged that Chaturvedi paid Rs 50 lakh for the alleged contract killing. The case had also, at one stage, seen consideration of invoking provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).Chaturvedi denied the allegations and maintained that the case was driven by business rivalry and efforts to frame him. The matter was later transferred for investigation to the State CID.During the CID probe, the agency raised questions about the prosecution narrative and indicated an alleged nexus involving the rival builder and certain police officers, suggesting Chaturvedi may have been framed. The investigation led to action against police personnel, with seven policemen suspended in connection with the matter, including then Additional Commissioner of Police Bipin Bihari, who has since retired.The CID also re-examined witness claims about the purported Juhu incident. According to findings placed before the Andheri court, witnesses who had earlier asserted they were present when Shah was allegedly fired at later denied that any such incident occurred.On the basis of its investigation, the State CID concluded there was no material to proceed against the accused and filed a B-Summary report seeking closure on February 13, 2008. The agency also submitted a report under Section 169 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, seeking discharge of some accused due to insufficient evidence.However, the Metropolitan Magistrate, 10th Court, Andheri, rejected the B-Summary report and declined the Section 169 request in an order dated January 30, 2013.Chaturvedi then approached the High Court challenging the Magistrate’s decision and seeking acceptance of the closure report. The State CID filed a separate revision application seeking similar relief, with connected intervention applications also filed by another accused.In its decision, the High Court reviewed the investigation record and the material compiled by the CID, observing that the investigation led to the conclusion that the informant had lodged a false case.

I remember the early days of our sickle cell work not through files or review meetings but through faces.I remember sitting in a tertiary hospital with parents trying to understand how an inherited blood disease they had never been warned about had entered their children’s lives so early, and so harshly. Many were healthy carriers themselves. They had done nothing wrong. They simply did not know. An elderly kaka told us that every few weeks, he left his kheti and travelled nearly 50km for hydroxyurea, a medicine that reduces the frequency and severity of sickle cell crises. A crisis takes over the body, the household and the family economy. On Sickle Cell Day last year, we invited patients to speak. A young woman, only 21, broke down describing how she tells her younger siblings, “Khud ka dhyaan rakho (take care of yourself). No one will come to save you.” It carried both courage and abandonment, and it made the administrative question clear. A public health system cannot wait for people in such circumstances to find their own way through diagnosis, treatment and support. The system has to move first. The National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission has created an important mandate. In a high burden tribal district, the real test lies in what happens after screening. Does the patient get hydroxyurea near home? Is there a registry that lets the system remember the patient, instead of the patient having to keep chasing it? Nandurbar has screened nearly 5 lakh people. Trait prevalence here runs nearly 15-20%, against the roughly 10% programme design generally assumes, and disease prevalence is 1-1.5%. Those parents were never told what they were carrying. That is what wide early testing changes, and it matters as much for carriers as for patients. Two tests together made it possible. High performance liquid chromatography gives the fuller picture. Dried blood spot genetic testing, developed by Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, lets a frontline worker collect a sample through a finger prick and send it without cold chain, reaching habitations where waiting for people to travel to a lab would have taken years. It has also brought screening forward. The full newborn panel has to wait until the third day, when hormone levels settle enough to read reliably. Sickle cell alone can be caught from a dried blood spot on the first day, wherever the child is born.Diagnosis without treatment is a form of cruelty. Telling someone they have sickle cell disease and then sending them kilometres for medicine transfers the burden back to them. Nandurbar decentralised hydroxyurea to primary health centres, with support and training for doctors. The district also set up a sickle cell helpline unit that does not wait for patients to appear. It calls them, follows up on treatment, connects them to entitlements and builds trust. Disability certificates issued have gone from about 100 a year ago to around 1,500. Monthly sickle cell melas and support groups gave families a place to be tested and to see they were not alone. A Bhili and Pawri language playlist, made with an organisation that has run palliative care in these villages for years, carried stories of hope. Care cannot stay scattered across camp registers, test reports and hospital files. Nandurbar has begun using e-Suchi—its digital health directory—to map patients. Prevention comes next because sickle cell touches marriage, family anxiety and young people’ choices. Elimination is not a campaign but a continuum, and social security delivery and prevention at scale are still unfinished here. For an administration, the real question is not only how many were tested but also how many were found, counselled, treated, followed up and protected from falling through the cracks. That is where the promise of sickle cell elimination will finally be tested.(The writer is Nandurbar’s district collector)

Mumbai: In a workshop at King Circle, a towering Ganesh idol is slowly taking shape, not from Plaster of Paris (PoP), but from shadu clay, sculpted patiently by hand. For years, commercial idol-makers have been arguing that giant public idols cannot be made from clay, claiming the material is too fragile to support its own weight. At GSB Seva Mandal, that assumption quietly falls apart: artisans here have been hand-crafting massive clay idols for over seven decades.Outside its walls, however, PoP continues to dominate Mumbai’s workshops. And as Bombay high court once again hears the state govt’s plea to extend the use of PoP idols taller than six feet for immersion in natural water bodies, the city’s familiar annual environmental debate has returned. Court directions on phasing out PoP date back to 2013, but artisans, environmentalists and organisers say the transition is shaped by far more than the choice of material.Marine biologist Yazad Mehta (30) is clear about the environmental cost. Contrary to popular belief, he says, PoP idols do not dissolve after immersion. Their calcium sulphate base breaks down into dense, non-biodegradable sludge that settles across the seabed. “Along with PoP, it’s also the heavy metal paints on these idols that severely pollute our water bodies,” Mehta says, adding, “synthetic paints laden with toxic heavy metals leach persistent chemicals into the marine ecosystem.”Artisans, though, often start the discussion elsewhere: with engineering. At GSB Seva Mandal, trustee RG Bhat says their idol has always been made differently. “Our idol is made with clay only, pure shadu mati,” he says, adding that its dimensions are determined by tradition as much as craftsmanship. Every year, the deity is adorned with more than 65 kg of gold and hundreds of kg of silver jewellery. “Because it has jewellery, all its measurements need to be exact; otherwise it doesn’t fit,” says Avinash Patkar (67), a former JJ School of Art professor and second-generation sculptor behind the idol.Working alongside his daughter Gautami Patkar (35), who has been experimenting with large-scale papier-mâché idols, Patkar spends nearly a month sculpting the idol by hand. Raw clay is mixed with sacred durva grass and dried hay to create a fibrous material that binds naturally without a rigid mould. The idol then dries under industrial exhaust fans for nearly a week before hairline cracks are repaired with fresh clay. “A person doing PoP work cannot even apply it,” Patkar says, pointing to the specialised skill shadu clay demands.Many commercial workshops across Mumbai, though, say the real challenge is less about technique than time and space. PoP cures within hours and dries completely in two to three days; shadu clay can take between 15 and 20 days to dry in Mumbai’s monsoon humidity. Artisans say that difference affects almost every stage of production. A single clay idol often needs to be shifted, rotated and supported between 25 and 40 times as it dries, requiring considerably more workshop space in a city where land is at a premium.Prakash Koyande (54), a spray-paint and detailing specialist in Jogeshwari with 27 years in the trade, says workspace has become his biggest concern. “This year, I don’t have a pandal. The space that I had was through BMC, and it hasn’t been allotted to me this year due to space issues. If I leave one place and go to another, it affects the customers, and I have to look out for my artisans too,” he says. Access to workspace remains a challenge, Koyande says, even as BMC provides free shadu clay through its online single-window system.The economics also shape material choices. Ramchandra Patil of Majha Morya in Navi Mumbai, who has sold PoP, shadu clay, red soil and paper idols since 2017, says customers transporting idols over long distances usually prefer PoP for its durability.Dattadri Kothur (40), art director and founder of Tree Ganesha in Worli, says the difference begins inside the workshop. “PoP makers have more demand and earn more because they get paid per piece,” he says. A worker pouring liquefied plaster into a rubber mould can produce about ten identical idols a day and earn roughly Rs 1,000, Kothur says; a clay artisan may spend the same amount of time shaping and reinforcing a single idol while earning about Rs 500. Those differences show up in retail prices too: mass-produced PoP idols are often available at nearly half the price of comparable clay idols. Clay idols also require customised wooden support frames for transport, adding further to production and logistics costs.Kothur has taken a different approach in his own workshop. Tree Ganesha makes idols from untreated red soil sourced from Gujarat and the Konkan, avoids chemical paints, and embeds each idol with seeds and fertilisers so devotees can immerse them at home in supplied pots. Even then, he says, convincing first-time buyers isn’t easy. “First-time users always ask if it will break during transport,” he says, a hesitation he believes is rooted in faith as much as practicality. “People hold a deep devotion; they fear that if an idol cracks at home during drying or transit, it brings a bad omen.”Municipal data shows Mumbai deployed 298 artificial immersion sites in 2025, with 98% of smaller household idols immersed there. Yet 61% of all idols immersed that year were still made of PoP.Kothur believes the transition to eco-friendly idols will depend as much on public leadership as on policy. “If the mega mandals, the celebrities, and the historic icons like Lalbaugcha Raja lead by example, by voluntarily reducing their height and embracing clay, 100 other neighbourhood mandals will instantly follow,” he says. Until the leadership of the festival changes its definition of grandeur, the artisans on the margins will continue to fight an uphill battle against time, space, and the rigid mould of plaster.