The State government on Monday filed an FIR against former Maharashtra revenue minister Eknath Khadse over allegations of corruption in the MIDC land deal case. Bund Garden police in Pune have transferred the case to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). The government had informed the Mumbai High Court last month that the State ACB will register an FIR against Khadse. The State’s decision to register an FIR comes after much prodding by the High Court as initially it had submitted that it wished to wait for the Judicial Committee’s report to ascertain if Khadse had a role to play in the land scam. In February this year, the State had told the court that the Pune police had not detected any ‘prima facie cognisable offence’ in the case. The court was hearing a plea filed by social activist Hemant Gavande alleging, among other things, that Khadse had purchased a three-acre plot at Bhosari in the name of his kin for Rs 3.75 crore as against the market price of Rs 40 crore. A bench of Justices Ranjit More and Revati Mohite-Dere had directed that the ACB’s probe be conducted independently and expeditiously and that the ACB must not let the previous findings of the Pune police or the State-appointed Judicial Committee weigh upon its own probe. The Bench also directed that the probe be supervised by an officer not below the rank of Additional Director General of the ACB. Gavande first made these allegations in July 2016 and Khadse was forced to resign from his post of state revenue minister soon after.