Protest at Pawar’s residence: Sadavarte’s wife made wanted accused

The police said she attended core meeting and helped in instigating the protest, add charges of breach of trust against Sadavarte

The Mumbai police, investigating the protest outside NCP chief Shard Pawar’s residence, on Wednesday made MSRTC workers’ advocate Gunaratna Sadavarte’s wife Jayashree Patil a wanted accused in the case.

The police have also added charges of criminal breach of trust, claiming that Sadavarte collected a huge amount of money from MSRTC employees. Sadavarte was arrested on Friday with over 100 MSRTC employees.

During the hearing on Wednesday, special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat claimed that Patil had attended a meeting with core committee members a night before the protest and helped in instigating the protest. The meeting was held on the terrace of the building where Sadavarte lives.

The police said Sadavarte collected over Rs 2 crore, some of it from the MSRTC employees, without giving them any receipt. They also claimed to have found a diary of Sadavarte mentioning the entries of the collected money. One Chandrakant Suryawanshi was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly uploading videos of Sadavarte on YouTube.

We want to question Sadavarte face to face with Suryawanshi for which we require seven days of police custody, said Gharat. He also added that the police are close to arresting the person from Nagpur who was in touch with Sadavarte on the day of the protests and also gave the instructions of sending reporters at the protest site on Friday.

Sadavarte was represented by advocate Mrunalini Kulkarni, who argued that the police have already been granted custody on the claims of conspiracy, alleged misuse of money and in the name of a person from Nagpur, and how can the police remand be granted on the pretext of face-toface interrogation whenever they arrest a new accused.

She added that the police are trying to change the direction of investigation and claim misuse of money, which is actually money paid by clients to the advocate,

when no grievance of misuse has been raised by the employees. The court sent Sadavarte to 14 days of magistrate custody, while custody of Suryawanshi was extended by four days.