MUMBAI, June 28 -- The state government has informed the Bombay High Court that it has refused permission to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to investigate corruption allegations against former state revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat, saying the orders in question were quasi-judicial and not open to such scrutiny. The submission was made on Thursday during the hearing of a petition filed by Thane activist Ajit Patil, who has sought a CBI investigation into allegations that Thorat illegally revised a 2013 order in 2021 to allow the conversion of an 85,000-square-metre plot in Thane from industrial to residential use. A government lawyer told a division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata that the state had declined the ACB's request for permission to investigate because both orders involved were quasi-judicial in nature and it would be inappropriate to comment on them. The bench directed the state government to clarify within two weeks its stand on the petitioner's demand for a CBI probe after noting that the affidavit earlier sought from the chief secretary had not yet been filed. Patil alleged that he discovered the alleged irregularities through Right to Information replies received from the Revenue Department in October 2023 before approaching the ACB. According to the petition, the ACB informed him in December 2023 that it had sought the state's approval to investigate the allegations, but no decision was communicated, leading him to file the petition before the high court....