TEAM HERALD
MARGAO/PANJIM Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco will not be seeking the governor’s pardon as was reported by a section of the media, on Monday. Sources close to the legislator said that such a petition has neither been considered, nor drafted and was never intended.
Sources said that Pacheco was in Delhi and was waiting for the decision from the Supreme Court on his review petition. Sources said that the review petition had been sent to one of the apex court’s benches for hearing. The Pacheco camp is hoping that the bench takes it up and allows it before Friday and gives immediate relief from arrest.
If the SC bench decides to hear the petition and sets a hearing date later than the JMFC deadline for arrest then Pacheco’s lawyers will approach the JMFC with a petition seeking to extend the period for the arrest.
Sources also said that Pacheco is not absconding, nor is he running away from the law, but that it is his fundamental right to seek justice and he is doing just that.
Sources handling Pacheco’s legal matters said they filed the review petition on the claims that the prosecution has not examined two witnesses and that the doctor who signed the victim’s medical report claimed in it that there was no injury or redness on the face of the claimant of assault.
Pacheco’s close aides said, “By spreading police all over and by curtailing Mickky’s free passage to Goa, the authorities are creating a scene that Mickky is absconding and avoiding arrest. The fact that Mickky has fled Goa is a big misconception and false. Mickky had gone to Delhi even before the warrant was issued.”
Pacheco’s well wishers also expressed their displeasure over the police trying to arrest the MLA before he surrenders.
Meanwhile, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Luizinho Faleiro said that when the Congress party faced similar problems in the past it had even asked (the concerned minister involved in a crime) to resign. “Once the court decides, it has to be honoured and respected, and law has to take its own course,” Faleiro said.
“Goa Police have become ineffective and careless. God help this state. It is like promising to stop drugs but government later saying that tourists come to Goa because of this. Similarly, thefts and murders are reported and nobody seems to care about it,” Faleiro added.
