PANJIM: Nuvem MLA Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco boycotted Goa Governor Dr Mridula Sinha’s address in the Assembly in protest of her keeping on hold his parole plea last year.
Clad in a black safari suit, Pacheco grabbed the attention of the MLAs and media as he remained seated when she was ceremoniously escorted into the House to address the MLAs before the commencement of the first session of the year. He later staged a walkout and after remaining absent throughout her speech, the Goa Vikas Party (GVP) legislator walked in with a smile seconds after she exited the House after delivering the speech.
“Why should I respect her when she does not respect the elected representatives? She should have either rejected or approved the parole request instead of holding it back without any reason,” he told media persons later.
Pacheco, convicted for slapping a junior electricity engineer in 2006 was sentenced to six months jail. On failing to get relief from the Supreme Court and remaining underground for about two months, he had surrendered before the Margao judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) on June 1, 2015 to complete his sentence.
While serving his jail term in Sada sub-jail, he applied for parole to attend the monsoon session of the Legislative Assembly that began on July 29, 2015 for which he had already sent nine starred and unstarred questions. Activists and certain political parties objected to this arguing it was an attempt to escape the jail term. The Governor had kept the plea on hold even as the cabinet had granted him pardon on a mercy petition seeking waiver of jail sentence.
Pacheco was released 44 days in advance taking into account his ‘good behaviour’ and set free on October 10, 2015.
