CLEARED SKHERAurangabad: The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has vacated the interim relief granted to a woman tehsildar, who had allegedly transferred Rs 2.83 lakh to the personal bank account of her subordinate talathi that was meant for drought-hit farmers.The tehsildar was posted in Vasmat of Hingoli district in 2016 when the incident took place. She had transferred the money into the account of a talathi, who had been transferred about a couple of months before the transaction took place.The transferred money was meant for drought-hit farmers in Vasmat tehsil of Hingoli district, which is one of the eight districts of drought-prone Marathwada region. After the amount was transferred, it was allegedly withdrawn in several instalments using an ATM card.The alleged misappropriation of the funds came to light after the Talathi Sangh at Vasmat learned about it and lodged a complaint against the woman tehsildar and the talathi.Taking serious cognizance of the complaint, the then collector ordered a probe and also carried out an audit of the transactions made. He found substance in the complaint. Following the findings, on January 11, 2017, the woman tehsildar was suspended and a report about the same was sent to the Aurangabad divisional commissionerate as well as the state secretariat.On learning about it, Nanded based RTI activist Zakir Shaikh obtained the relevant documents and found that no offence has been registered. He started lodging complaints, but they fell on deaf ears. On January 1 this year, he approached the Judicial Magistrate First Class with a plea to register an offence against the woman tehsildar as well as the talathi.The court on January 29 issued directives to the Vasmat police, following which the duo was booked for cheating, criminal breach of trust, assisting in concealment of stolen property, forgery and criminal conspiracy. The talathi then moved the Hingoli sessions court seeking anticipatory bail, which was rejected, while the woman tehsildar moved to the HC for quashing of FIR.The HC on February 26 granted her interim relief and issued directives to the investigating agency to carry out investigation but said that chargesheet should not be filed without seeking permission from the court.During the latest hearing, the division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice T V Nalawade and Justice K L Wadane came down heavily on the applicants and expressed their unwillingness to quash the FIR. The HC granted them the liberty to withdraw and the interim relief was vacated. The woman tehsildar then withdrew the petition.

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