Slow pace of probe making you a laughing stock, HC tells state
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court, not for the first time in the past few months, pulled up the state government and investigating agencies on Thursday for the slow pace of their probe into the 2015 murder of rationalist Govind Pansare in Kolhapur. The state has been reduced to a “laughing stock”, the court said, while summoning the home department’s additional chief secretary on March 28 to explain what was causing the delay.
A bench of Justice SC Dharmadhikari and Justice BP Colabawalla was hearing petitions filed by families of Pansare and Dr Narendra Dabholkar, another rationalist who was shot dead in a similar manner in Pune on August 20, 2013. The judges were irked after reading a progress report submitted by Maharashtra CID’S special investigation team (SIT) in the Pansare case.
The SIT is looking into Pansare’s case, while the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the killing of Dabholkar.
“Let the state feel some pressure... most often, the police gets away,” said the bench, after reading SIT’S report. “If crimes will be probed only after court’s intervention...if, in matter after matter, judiciary is the only saviour, then it is a tragedy,” they said. NEW DELHI: The BJP has chosen “Modi Hai to Mumkin Hai” (Modi makes it possible) as its slogan for the summer’s Lok Sabha election on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image as a doer, finance minister Arun Jaitley said. In a Facebook post, Jaitley added that Modi has demonstrated his indefatigability by working round the clock over the past five years, achieving results that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible.
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