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SC seeks Mah response on bail to BJP MLA accused of forging dead man’s signature
BJP’s Satara legislator Jaykumar Gore approached the Supreme Court against the Bombay high court’s June 14 decision declining to grant pre-arrest bail
The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the Maharashtra government’s response on a petition filed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state legislator facing arrest in a case where he is accused of preparing forged documents in the name of a person who was already dead in 2016.
Satara legislator Jaykumar Gore approached the Supreme Court against the Bombay high court’s June 14 decision declining to grant pre-arrest bail.
As the person in whose name the alleged document was prepared was a member of the scheduled caste community, Gore also faced charges under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 besides the offence of forgery under the Indian Penal Code.
A vacation bench of justices CT Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia, while posting the matter to July 1 felt that the facts of the case do not prima facie establish the offence under the 1989 Act. “The anticipatory bail was rejected by the high court due to the bar on grant of pre-arrest bail under the SC/ST Act of 1989,” the bench said. It further added, “The SC/ST Act may not be applicable. If we are prima facie of this view, would it not be a case for grant of anticipatory bail.”
Advocate Rahul Chitnis appearing for Maharashtra sought time to file a response outlining its opposition to the arrest shield.
The complaint against Jaykumar was filed in April this year by one Mahadev Piraji Bhise who alleged that his plot of land is situated close to the plot owned by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Education Society. Jaykumar is the president of this society since 2019. According to the complaint, Jaykumar wanted an approach road for the society land and submitted an application to the Assistant Director, Town Planning at Satara.
Under the local rules, a 15-metre road is mandatory for development of any land in Satara. For this purpose, it was alleged that Jaykumar along with other persons prepared a false and fabricated affidavit or memorandum of understanding in December 2020 by putting the signature of the original owner of the adjacent land (father of the complainant) who died in October 2016.
When the case was investigated by the police, it was revealed that fake Aadhaar card of the deceased was also generated and submitted to the authorities to execute the affidavit.
Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appearing for the BJP MLA along with advocate Abhikalp Pratap Singh told the court that the entire case was foisted on him because he filed a complaint to the Enforcement Directorate in September 2021 against the Deshmukh family which earlier operated the society.
This complaint, which is under probe by ED, was based on complaints by students that donation was accepted for providing admission to medical courses and from teachers for appointment by the erstwhile administrators of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Education society.
Commenting on the allegations, the bench observed, “It is a very serious allegation taking note of the accusation against you that the person who had died in 2016, his signature is there. The high court found it to be serious. In that case, why should we look into this matter.”
Jethmalani said that his client is willing to give his specimen signature and thumb impression to be examined by an expert as he is convinced that the signature and thumb imprint on the alleged forged document does not belong to him.
The petition said, “The present FIR is nothing but a counter blast to the complaint filed by the petitioner with the ED against members of Deshmukh family who have engineered the registration of the present FIR by getting a complaint filed by ex-facie got up complainant.” It further stated, “None of the offences under the SC/ST Act have been made out against the Petitioner in as much as the basic ingredients necessary to constitute an offence under the Act are hopelessly missing from the complaint.”
