PANJIM: Ten years after the belated lodging of two FIRs against three accused of criminal conspiracy to grab land of a Mumbai-based lawyer at Salvador do Mundo, the Nazir of the Magistrate’s court at Mapusa has allegedly destroyed the incriminating inward register (Muddemal) seized by the police before framing of the charges against the accused.
Sources from the court said that “this incident is now bound to have a direct impact on the future progress of this case”.
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The matter came to light recently when the Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) Prashila Narulkar came to know about it.
APP Narulkar said that the complainant had filed an appeal within the time limit but the inward register was destroyed. “It appears to be due to miscommunication,” she said.
During this decade, two of the PSIs, then attached to the Porvorim police station investigating the case, have been promoted as police inspectors despite arrest warrants being issued against one of them, who did not appear in response to summons issued by the then Magistrate, Dvijple Patkar.
Sources told Herald, that the Nazir could not have destroyed the inward register without an order from the then Magistrate Narayan Amonkar, who had discharged the two accused while a separate case was still pending against a third accused. The two accused – Ritesh Gadkar, is a clerk in Salvador do Mundo village panchayat, while Bhagwant Naik was the then panchayat member.
Mahadev Shirodkar was accused of building a pucca house in the ancestral property of the lawyer, without seeking permission from the panchayat. The charge against the accused was that Gadkar abused his position as a public servant allegedly fabricated a bogus entry in the inward register of the panchayat.
The complainant accused the then assistant public prosecutor (APP) of not being able to argue the case properly so that the two accused Gadkar and Naik were discharged of the crime. He alleged that the then APP refused to submit the ‘wrong discharge’ order to the Sessions Court for revision, forcing him to approach the Directorate of Prosecutions to recommend to the government that it be submitted for revision.
The then senior public prosecutor Anuradha Talaulikar, assisted by the complainant, got the case restored with the observation that the discharge order was devoid of adequate reasons and did not go by the evidence-on-record. The case was sent back to the then JMFC Amonkar.
The accused duo, Naik and Gadkar, approached the High Court and obtained a stay on the framing of charges against them but not on the further investigation by the police.
When contacted, the complainant said it is shocking that the inward register was destroyed by the Nazir even though the matter had gone for revision well within the limitation period.
“This is very serious matter and a judicial inquiry has to be ordered pursuant to an FIR. How can an inward register which is in the custody of the court be destroyed? Disciplinary action should be taken against those who have done this,” he said.
