Satish Shetty Biography 
Satish Shetty was a social activist from Maharashtra known for exposing many land scams in the late 2000s. He used Right to Information Act to expose many scams by government officials for the last 5 years. He was brutally killed on 13 January 2010 near Pune by unidentified persons at the age of only 40. For his bravery and social activities, he was posthumously awarded many awards including the Sajag Nagrik Award and NDTV Indian of the Year's LIC Unsung Hero of the Year Award 2010. Satish Shetty RTI Gallantry award was started by National RTI Forum as an honour to this martyr who dedicated his whole life to fighting against illegal mining in protected area.
Satish Shetty was born on 21 July 1970 in Maharashtra. Shetty used RTI Act to expose scams took place in Maharashtra. Many of them were targeted IRB Infrastructure against illegal constructions. Shetty exposed irregularities involving forged documents in the company’s township projects. He filed a complaint in 2009 for the forged documents used in the construction along Pune-Mumbai highway. 90 sale deals were cancelled and sub-registrar Ashwini Kshirsagar was suspended. But the company blamed land brokers for forging documents.
Since then Shetty received life threatening calls. Though he sought police protection from Pune Police, stating that he was allegedly being threatened by Mhaiskar his request was not granted. In 2009, the Pune rural police received 697 requests for protection including that of Shetty, but none of them granted. On January 13, 2010 around 7.15 a.m, when Shetty was on his morning walk he was seriously injured by some unidentified people. Though rushed to a private hospital, Shetty succumbed later.
The case was handed over to CBI who conducted polygaph tests on Mhaiskar and 9 others and concluded the possible involvement of these people which resulted in the falling down of share prices of the company. The planned township project was also cancelled. The CBI announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh to a person with credible information of Shetty’s murder case.
Published: N/A
Updated: November 11, 2015
