TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Special judge South Goa on Monday rejected the anticipatory bail applications of Canacona municipal engineers, Ajay Desai and Ashank Gauncar in the Canacona building collapse case. The two engineers now face arrest by the police.
Special judge Nutan Sardesai pronounced separate orders in the open court room on Monday rejecting the bail pleas of the municipal engineers. The two had maintained that they are in no way connected with the building collapse, blaming the contractor, builder and the structural engineer for the incident. The judge, however, has reserved her orders on the bail applications of arrested deputy collector Prashant Shirodkar and deputy town planner Prakash Bandodkar to January 22. Meanwhile, the deputy town planner has been remanded to 14 days judicial custody. Meanwhile, in its reply filed in the court, the police have prayed for rejection of the application calling for discarding the arguments advanced by special public prosecutor Adv Rajiv Gomes before the special judge in connection with the bail applications over his appointment to represent the state in the case. In the reply, DySP S R Goltekar submitted that Adv Gomes had acted on his instructions as per the government order, adding that there’s no order to discard the arguments advanced by him. Goltekar submitted that since there was a delay in getting the order, and as there was urgency and the case was of a serious nature, Adv Gomes, who was already engaged by the government as SPP to appear in crime no 1/2014 of Canacona Police station was orally requested to appear on behalf of the state and to give an undertaking that in the Court that the order of the government would be produced before the disposal of the applications.
