Court rejects BJP leader Pravin Darekar’s pre-arrest bail plea

The Mumbai sessions court on Friday rejected the anticipatory bail application of Pravin Darekar, leader of the opposition in the council

The Mumbai sessions court on Friday rejected the anticipatory bail application of Pravin Darekar, leader of the opposition in the council.

Pravin Darekar at Vidhan Bhavan. HT File Photo

Darekar is accused of using bogus membership of a labour society to get elected as a director of Mumbai District Central Cooperative Bank from the quota reserved for such societies though he was not a labourer.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Darekar had allegedly registered himself as a labourer with Pratidnya Labour Cooperative Society in 1997 to contest elections to the bank and was its chairman for 10 years between 2011 and 2021.

He moved the court through advocates Akhilesh Chaubey and Abad Ponda, claiming that the complainant’s statement itself revealed that the present applicant became a member of the labour society in 1997, when he was neither an MLA nor did he have any business.

“He was staying in a slum at Dahisar East and was a labourer. Hence, he became a member of the labour society,” Ponda claimed.

“The entire complaint is about a labourer becoming the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra legislative council. It is admitted fact that the applicant was not issued a single notice in respect of his membership as a labourer till December 14, 2021,” he said.

Soon after Darekar received a show-cause notice from the competent authority, he resigned from the post of director of the cooperative bank and as a law-abiding citizen, approached the appellate authority against the notice, Ponda said.

He further said that the BJP leader had not made any wrongful gain by indulging in malpractices as alleged. The whole exercise of prosecution was under the influence of the state government to stop him from making allegations regarding corruption within the government, the petition said.

Police opposed the bail plea of the BJP leader through special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat.

“Even after being elected as a Member of Legislative Council, Darekar continued to hold membership of the labour society, posing as a labourer. He got elected as chairman of the cooperative bank from 2017 to 2021 from the labour quota, cheating the government and the public,” Gharat said.

While filing the affidavit in 2016 for the MLC elections, the special public prosecutor said, Darekar had mentioned that he and his family members owned property worth ₹2.13 crore, of which property valued at ₹91 lakh belonged to him, and that as an MLA, he got ₹2.5 lakh per month. “Thus, the BJP leader was not a labourer,” he added.