HVK Archives: Former AG criticises Thackeray for encounter death
Former AG criticises Thackeray for encounter death - The Free Press Journal
Posted By Ashok V Chowgule (ashokvc@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)
9 May 1997
Title : Former AG criticises Thackeray for encounter death
Author :
Publication : The Free Press Journal
Date : May 9, 1997
Former Maharashtra advocate-general Arvind Bobde on Thursday criticised Shiv
Sena Chief Bal Thackeray for advocating elimination of Mumbai-based gangsters
through police-managed encounters, reports UNI.
"This is nothing but state-sponsored terrorism", he said at a meet-the-programme
organised by the Nagpur Union of Working Journalists (NUWJ). "Nothing survives in
state-sponsored terrorism. Today the bullet is on a gangster, tomorrow it can be
on anybody", he remarked.
Bobde, who succeeded in getting the detention order of underworld don Arun Gawli
quashed by the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court recently Gawli recently, said
Mumbai police commissioner Subhash Malhotra had echoed what Thackeray stated. Both
these gentlemen seemed to think that encounters were the only form of criminal
justice system, he remarked caustically. Seventy-three-year-old Bobde had also
appeared for Thackeray in a contempt case against the Sena chief . He told a
questioner that the had defended Thackeray in the contempt case before the Nagpur
bench of the high court because he believed what the Sena chief had stated about a
judge was correct . Thackeray refrained from revealing the name of the judge
because two others would have been exposed, he disclosed. He said that
unfortunately truth is no defence in a contempt case.
The high court bench at Nagpur has convicted Thackeray and sentenced him to a
week's simple imprisonment for alleging at a public rally in October last that a
judge had demanded Rs 30 lakh from a litigant for favouring him and that he had no
respect for such judges. Thackeray's appeal is pending before the Supreme Court.
To a question, the eminent lawyer, who hails from Nagpur, said he chose to appear
for Asha Gawli, the wife of the detained don as he found that the order of
detention on Gawli under the national security act was fabricated and illegal.
Whatever the character of a person, the authorities could not take away his
liberty in an illegal manner, he remarked.
Bobde, said he does not charge any fee for fighting cases of illegal detention and
contempt of court. "I have not seen Gawli. A lawyer approached me on his behalf.
On being convinced that the detention order was fabricated and illegal, I took
the brief," he said.
He pointed that if somebody tried to rationalise such an illegality, such a person
would end up in supporting stage-managed encounters. About corruption in
judiciary, he said a lot had been done in the last two years. The Chief Justice of
the Bombay high court ordered inquiry against as many as 160 judges of subordinate
judiciary, he disclosed.
He said the press and judiciary must complement each other in upholding rule of
law. He offered to fight gratis cases attacking individual liberty. Bobde, who is
champion of separate statehood for Vidarbha region, said the people of the region
must intensify agitation for the same to keep themselves aloof from the culture of
"encounters and corruption". Since corruption is in crore in Mumbai, he remarked.
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