TEAM HERALD
PANJIM/VASCO: In a bid to avoid embarrassment to the State government, Minister for Rural Development Francisco ‘Mickky’ Pacheco, who has been convicted for assaulting a government servant, has decided to resign from the BJP-led coalition government ‘soon’.
“Mickky is going to resign sometime soon. He is doing this to avoid embarrassment to the State Government,” confirmed Pacheco’s close aid, Lyndon Monteiro. The announcement comes a day after Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar told media that it is embarrassing to have a convicted minister in the Cabinet.
Monteiro said that Pacheco will meet the Chief Minister soon and submit his resignation from the Cabinet. Sources late night indicated that Pacheco had left for Panjim with his resignation, but there was no confirmation of whether he had submitted it.
The chief minister is in Goa till Friday early morning, as he is slated to leave for Bangalore to attend the BJP’s national executive meeting. Parsekar would be in Bangalore for the next two days.
Earlier on his arrival from Delhi, Pacheco had said that resigning from the ministry would be decided after meeting the chief minister. Speaking to the media at Daboilm airport, he had confirmed filing a review petition in the Supreme Court and sought to know why the media was so concerned about his resignation. He was accompanied by a lone supporter and sped away from the airport before media persons could question him further.
Pacheco, the Goa Vikas Party Supremo and Nuvem MLA, was inducted in the Parsekar cabinet on November 8, 2014, after the vacancy created due to resignation of then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who was elevated as Defence Minister.
An FIR was filed against Pacheco on July 15, 2006 by Kapil Natekar, a junior engineer of the Electricity Department, alleging that he was abused and slapped by the MLA in his chamber for not taking a call.
This week the Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices F M I Kalifulla and Shiva Kirti Singh, had dismissed Pacheco’s special leave petition challenging the July 17, 2014 High Court verdict. As per the order, the minister will have to undergo six months imprisonment.
Sources close to Pacheco said that the Minister is likely to file an appeal before the High Court on April 6, seeking time to surrender before police, until the revision petition is heard by the Apex Court.
Pacheco, who returned from Delhi Thursday afternoon, had on Wednesday filed a revision petition before the Supreme Court pleading that he should be given justice as witnesses were never examined by the courts before passing the verdict against him.
The Bombay High Court at Goa had in 2014, set aside the verdict of a revisional court, which had “brought down” the conviction of the MLA to Section 323 (causing hurt) from the harsher section 353 (assaulting public servant to deter from duty) under the IPC and, instead ordered his release on “admonition” under the Probation of Offenders Act.
