Team Herald
PANJIM: Stung by the charges levelled against him by Goa Congress State President Girish Chodankar to the media, Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly Rajesh Patnekar, lashed out at Chodankar, calling him ‘uncivilised’.
“What statements Girish has made, I think they are uncivilised. He has not gone through the order and without going through it he is passing comments. That is wrong. They can read the order and then pass comments. Here he has passed the comment against the presiding officer of the court. He cannot do that. He has to think before making such a comment,’ said Patnekar.
He also hinted that a notice could be served to Chodankar and when asked to confirm this, he said he will inform the media about his decision on Wednesday.
After completing his final hearings with both the petitioners—MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar and GPCC Chief Chodankar—Patnekar briefed the media twice outside the Ministerial Block of the Secretariat.
In his first interaction, Patnekar who was responding to queries from the media repeatedly said he would be offering no comment except to confirm that both the petitions had been dismissed. He added that the reasons behind the order can be seen in the order. When pointed out that the petitioners had claimed they had not seen the order, he said “they will have to apply for it and within 2 days they will get it.”
When asked about to respond on the the allegations made by Chodankar against him, Patnekar chose to reserve his comments and said, “Chodankar will get his reply tomorrow, before stepping into the Ministerial Block.”
However, within 20 minutes of this interaction, Patnekar came outside the Ministerial block and called on the media.
Patnekar asked the media to repeat the allegations made against him such as how the BJP General Secretary Satish Dhond allegedly dictated the order to the Speaker who was acting on Dhond’s behest.
There were also other allegations of forged documents being accepted by the Speaker.
Patnekar outrightly denied all the allegations against him and said he had done nothing wrong. He also said his conduct in terms of how he conducted the hearings and pronounced the orders was in line with how other courts in the country were presenting holding hearings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
