Mumbai: Bombay High Court on Friday quashed the governor's sanction to prosecute former Congress chief minister Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh Housing Society scandal, handing the Opposition party its second boost in two days in two corruption cases that had hurt it politically.

"Like 2G, Adarsh was never a scam," Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam claimed after the ruling, which comes a day after a special CBI court acquitted all the accused, including a former UPA minister and a DMK parliamentarian, in the 2G spectrum case.

The bench of Justices Ranjit More and Sadhana Jadhav held that the sanction that Maharashtra governor Vidyasagar Rao had granted to the CBI last year could not be "sustained" since it was not based on any fresh material that could be considered plausible "evidence" during trial.

"It was permissible for the hon'ble governor... to review or reconsider the earlier decision of erstwhile governors (his predecessor K. Sankaranarayanan) not to grant sanction, since the CBI claimed that some fresh material had surfaced," the bench said. "However, the agency failed to present any fresh material capable of being converted into evidence that can be substantiated at the time of trial."

Chavan had challenged Rao's February 2016 decision as "arbitrary, illegal and unjust" and arising from "malafide intentions".

Chavan is among 14 retired and serving defence personnel, bureaucrats and politicians accused in the case. He is accused of approving additional floor space index for the Adarsh Society in upscale south Mumbai and accepting two flats for his relatives in return when he was chief minister.

He is also accused of illegally approving, as revenue minister earlier, the allotment of 40 per cent of the flats to civilians although the society was originally meant for defence personnel.

The CBI had cited as fresh material the findings of a judicial commission and a ruling by a single high court judge that had rejected Chavan's plea to have his name struck off the list of accused. It had argued that quashing the sanction would amount to acquitting Chavan, which would render the entire probe futile.

Chavan, who was slapped with criminal conspiracy and cheating charges and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, said that with Friday's ruling, "the governor's office has been saved from setting a new precedent".

NCP politician Jayant Patil said: "Like the 2G verdict, people are realising that the BJP was involved in a campaign to malign Congress-led governments at the Centre and in the state." PTI