PANJIM: In a major jolt to Nuvem legislator Francisco Xavier alias Mickky Pacheco ahead of the monsoon session of the Goa Legislative Assembly, the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court on Thursday ordered him six months imprisonment for assaulting electricity department junior engineer Kapil Natekar in 2006.
The single bench judge A R Joshi also directed the Goa Vikas Party leader and former tourism minister to surrender before a judicial magistrate in Margao within two weeks and pay fine of Rs 1,500.
The ruling sets aside the December 2012 order of South Goa Additional Sessions Judge which released Mickky on admonition under Section 3 of the Probation of Offenders Act after convicting him on charges of voluntarily hurting Natekar under Section 323 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). The Judge had warned Pacheco against committing any assaults saying “Please be a public servant in the real sense of the term.”
In January 2013, the High Court had registered a suo motu writ petition into the admonition order after disposing of criminal applications by Adv Aires Rodrigues and Sudip Tamhankar.
Earlier on April 27, 2011, the then JMFC Margao D M Kerkar had held Pacheco guilty under section 353 of IPC for assaulting a public servant and sentenced him to simple imprisonment for one year with a fine of Rs 5,000. Mickky appealed before South Goa Assistant Sessions Judge Irshad Aga, who on October 5, 2011 upheld the conviction but reduced his imprisonment to six months and the fine to Rs 1,500. Pacheco once again challenged the order before Additional Sessions Judge who released him on admonition.
Pacheco was charged with assaulting Natekar as he did not attend to a phone call relating to a complaint of power failure. The police chargesheet also pointed that Pacheco had threatened the complainant.
