Court withdraws PIL against MLAs
The Bombay high court has dismissed and withdrawn a petition seeking action against two Maharashtra MLAs for assaulting a policeman in the premises of the assembly in March this year, a day after he imposed fine on the legislators for over-speeding on a sealink road.
Justices P.V. Hardas and Revati Dhere allowed activist Hemant Patil, on June 27, to withdraw his PIL in the light of the order passed by the court earlier on a similar petition.
On June 12, the court had allowed a similar petition filed by former police chief Julio Ribeiro to be withdrawn after advocate general Darius Khambata made a statement that investigation into the case was on and a chargesheet would be filed against MNS MLAs Ram Kadam and Kshitij Thakur of Bahujan Vikas Agadhi on or before June 30.
The two were among five MLAs who had allegedly assaulted assistant police inspector Sachin Suryavanshi in the assembly premises on March 19. Jaykumar Rawal (BJP), Rajan Salvi (Shiv Sena) and Pradeep Jaiswal (Independent) were also allegedly involved in the fracas, but were later given a clean chit by a House panel.
Mr Ribeiro had sought action against the assailants and revocation of Suryavanshi’s suspension.
Suryavanshi was allegedly assaulted a day after daring to stop Mr Thakur’s vehicle and imposing a fine for over-speeding on the Bandra-Worli Sealink.
Mr Khambata had also told the court that the crime branch had received CCTV footage from inside the assembly only on May 31. The footage is not very clear and had to be sent to the forensic lab. Once the footage is clear, other assailants, if any, and witnesses can be identified,” Mr Khambata had said.
The advocate general further said that the suspension order passed against Suryavanshi was before a revision committee which is likely to take a final decision soon.
The state had on March 25 announced suspension of Suryavanshi for “misbehaving” with Thakur. It had set up a House panel to probe the incident that later gave a clean chit to the accused.
—PTI
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