TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday summarily dismissed Goa Rural Development Minister Francisco Xavier alias Mickky Pacheco, ordering him to surrender forthwith to under six months of jail awarded for assaulting an electricity department engineer in 2006.
The bench of Justices Fakkir Mohd Kalifulla and Shiva Kirthi Singh found no merit in his application to allow him four weeks to surrender, telling his senior counsel that he was a proclaimed offender and moreover all are equal before the law.
It noted that Pacheco had sought to delay his going to jail by four weeks through his petition on April 15, but that period of four weeks is already almost over and there is no reason to give him any further extension.
The judges did not respond to his senior counsel’s plea to allow him at least two days to surrender. The court noted that his petitions to stay the jail sentence had been already rejected by the apex court and he cannot be allowed to keep using the legal remedies to escape the sentence.
When Pacheco’ss senior counsel Surendra Dessai pleaded for some consideration to his client in view of his position as a politician, elected representative and a minister, the court snubbed back: “You are already a proclaimed offender. A sitting MLA and yet you have become an absconder. What applies to others will apply to you. All are equal.”
Finding the court unrelenting, Dessai scaled down the reprieve prayer from four weeks to one week and finally sought just two days to surrender. “I will surrender in next two days,” he said only to find the court ignoring his plea.
Despite Pacheco still being a minister in Goa, counsel appearing for the Goa government showed no leniency towards him, telling the court: “He is a proclaimed offender and evading arrest.”
The Supreme Court had dismissed Pacheco’s petition against his conviction earlier on March 30 and he has been since gone into hiding to evade arrest to undergo the imprisonment. He had come to the apex court, challenging the judgment of the Panjim bench of the Bombay High Court in July last year, upholding six months of imprisonment awarded for assaulting the government servant.
