By Our Chief Reporter
Panaji (Goa) North Goa Principal Sessions Judge Irshad Agha has today directed Goa’s Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho and the six other accused to remain present in Court on May 3rd at 10 am to face trial in the infamous 2001 multi crore Power Scam case.
On 17th January this year while disposing Mauvin Godinho’s petition which was pending before the Supreme Court for over a decade, a bench comprising of Justice N.V.Ramana and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer while upholding the High Court order directing framing of charge declined to give any relief to the former Power Minister Mauvin Godinho in the Special Leave Petition which he had filed in 2007.
Mauvin Godinho had challenged the order passed by the Bombay High Court directing framing of charges against him in the multi-crore power scam case. By an order dated October 26, 2007, then Bombay High Court at Goa Justice Nelson Britto had directed framing of charges against Mauvin Godinho under Section 13(1) (d) (i) and (iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 read with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code.
Justice Nelson Britto had in his order also noted that the charges against Mauvin Godinho came to be investigated and charge sheet filed based on a complaint filed by Manohar Parrikar and that it appeared that the case took different turns depending upon which government was in power in Goa.
Adv. Aires Rodrigues has today stated that he would in public interest seek to assist the Prosecution in the trial as the Complainant in the case Manohar Parrikar and the accused Mauvin Godinho having now become strange bedfellows there was apprehension that the two in collusion would derail the due process of law in this very serious case of corruption where loss to the State exchequer was to the tune of crores of rupees.
Stating that the trial to be free and fair propriety demands that a Special Public Prosecutor be appointed in the case and that Mauvin Godinho should not continue as a Minister, Adv Rodrigues has recalled that the BJP while in the Opposition had successfully demanded the resignation of the then charge sheeted Minister Dayanand Narvekar.
Pointing out that in a 2014 landmark Judgment the Supreme Court had advised not to induct as Ministers charge sheeted persons facing trial, Adv. Rodrigues has stated that the Court had held that criminalization of politics destroyed people’s faith in democracy and that persons howsoever high could not be exempted from equal treatment.
Stating that the Supreme Court further observed that constitutional morality, good governance and constitutional trust expected good sense not to recommend any person with criminal charges from being appointed as a Minister, Adv. Rodrigues has said that the Court stated “criminalisation of politics is anathema to the sacredness of democracy and that it was worth saying that systemic corruption and sponsored criminalisation can corrode the fundamental core of elective democracy and, consequently, the constitutional governance.”
Adv. Rodrigues has further stated that the Supreme Court also opined that “A democratic republic polity hopes and aspires to be governed by a Government which is run by the elected representatives who do not have any involvement in criminal offences”.
