Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015, near his house in Kolhapur. He died four days later. (File Photo)The Bombay High Court pulled up the Maharashtra government on Tuesday over its lack of urgency in proceeding with the hearing on its 2018 application seeking cancellation of bail granted to Virendrasinh Tawade, an accused in the case pertaining to the death of activist and CPI leader Govind Pansare.
Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015 near his house in Kolhapur. He died four days later. Tawade is also an accused in the 2013 murder case of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar.
In January 2018, the Kolhapur sessions court had granted bail to Tawade, who is suspected to have played a key role in the murder of the Communist leader, stating that the trial in the case was yet to begin. Aggrieved by the same, the state government had approached the Bombay High Court seeking cancellation of bail.
A single-judge bench of Justice Sarang V Kotwal on Tuesday expressed displeasure after advocate S R Agarkar for applicant state government lawyer sought an adjournment in a plea filed by it in 2018. “This has been pending since 2018 for cancellation of bail. If it is for cancellation of bail, there should be urgency by prosecution” the judge orally said.
However, as a “last chance” the bench allowed adjournment in the matter and posted the next hearing to November 22.
Tawade had been initially arrested in 2016 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Dabholkar murder case and was later taken into custody by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the state’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) for Pansare’s murder on the ground that he was the “mastermind brain” behind the murder.
In August, this year, the Bombay High Court transferred the investigation into Pansare’s death from the SIT to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
The state government, in its plea seeking cancellation of the bail, stated that the sessions court order was “bad in law” and failed to consider that Tawade was the “main conspirator and mastermind” of the said crime. It pointed out that Tawade was purportedly a follower of Sanatan Sanstha, which was opposed by Pansare.
The state has claimed that there were reasons to believe that Tawade had arranged for the stay of two the accused assailants in Kolhapur, who later went absconding, and the same was not dealt with by the sessions court, therefore its bail order ought to have been dismissed.