A day after the Bombay High Court pulled up the Maharashtra government for delay in arresting Vikas Gogawale, son of cabinet minister and Shiv Sena MLA Bharat Gogawale, and other accused in a case related to a violent clash between rival political groups during a civic body election, the court was informed on Friday that the accused had surrendered before the local police.
Vikas, his cousin Mahesh Gogawale and other accused were named in FIRs crossed over a clash between Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) workers during the Mahad Municipal Council elections in Raigad district last month.
Advocate General (AG) Milind Sathe of the state government informed a single judge of Justice Madhav J Jamdar that all the accused in the FIR registered against people belonging to Shiv Sena have surrendered. In this regard, Sathe submitted to the prosecutor a communication addressed by the deputy commissioner of police of Mahad city.
Meanwhile, Shreeyash Jagtap, son of former NCP MLA Manik Jagtap, who was booked in another FIR and earlier given interim protection from arrest, sought to withdraw his pre-arrest bail plea, which the court allowed on Friday.
Justice Jamdar, while passing the order on Jagtap’s plea, noted that on January 16, the high court had expressed that the offense was serious and the petitioner was not entitled to anticipatory bail. However, as certain allegations were made regarding the conduct of the police officers, the court had granted him interim protection from arrest.
After Justice Jamdar told the lawyer representing Jagtap that he was not willing to grant anticipatory bail to his client, the lawyer requested withdrawal of the plea, which the court allowed. “The application for anticipatory bail is withdrawn and dismissed as such,” the high court said.
“Arrest them (the accused from the NCP faction) too. The only difference is that he (Shreeyash Jagtap) is the son of the former MLA and this (Vikas) was the son of the minister,” the judge orally commented to the state authorities.
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On Thursday, Justice Jamdar had expressed concern over a “negatively affected rule of law” and had orally asked: “Is the Prime Minister so helpless that he cannot do anything?”
“He is a cabinet minister and his son is absconding and the police cannot arrest him. So this is the rule of law situation in the state of Maharashtra? This is political and the crimes are also related to the electoral process. If the government wants, it can arrest anyone within 24 hours,” Justice Jamdar added.
Prosecutor Sathe later informed the court that the minister would contact his son and that he “will turn himself in on Friday morning.”
What was the case?
Cross FIRs were registered against Shiv Sena and NCP party workers in the Mahad election clash case. While one of the FIRs was registered against Vikas Gogawale, his cousin Mahesh and others, the other was against Shreeyash Jagtap, son of former NCP MLA Manik Jagtap and his supporters.
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The NCP alleged that Vikas and Sena supporters approached them on motorcycles, threatened them with dire consequences and assaulted Shreeyash’s supporter at another polling station.
However, the Sena faction in its FIR claimed that while returning home after visiting the polling centres, one of the NCP workers allegedly threatened to kill them and fired a pistol at the Gogawale cousins. Furthermore, they claimed that they survived when the gun misfired and rival supporters subsequently clashed with each other.