Written by: Express News Service
3 min readAug 22, 2012 04:19 AM IST
First published on: Aug 22, 2012 at 04:19 AM IST
The controversy involving an alleged assault by former MLA Pappu Kalani’s son Omie Kalani has come to the attention of the Bombay High Court. The court on Tuesday expressed its dissatisfaction over the handling of the case by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Former Ulhasnagar MLA Pappu Kalani has several criminal cases — including murder cases — against him. His son Omie Kalani was allegedly involved in an assault on Sunil Sukhramani to dissuade his aunt Neetu Sukhramani from contesting from a ward in Ulhasnagar. This was because Omie’s mother Jyoti had decided to contest from the same ward.
Sunil Sukhramani has approached the High Court through his lawyer Ganesh Gole demanding that the investigation of the case be transferred from the state CID to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). A Division Bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode pointed out that the CID has not arrested Omie despite his anticipatory bail application being rejected by a High Court judge.
“The facts of the case disclose a sorry state of affairs. It is distressing that the state CID has taken no steps to arrest the accused,” the judges said.
The judges said they may direct the state home ministry to conduct an inquiry against the CID officers who have handled the case as well as the investigating officer of the Crime Branch,which first investigated the case.
The court also took note of the fact that Sukhramani was assaulted for a second time after he approached the High Court,allegedly in the presence of policemen.
“You (CID) must strictly follow the law,irrespective of who the person involved is. You should place yourself in the position of the victim,” the judges said.
Justice Kanade said,“Such incidents send a wrong signal to society and create dissatisfaction. Some people are then tempted to take the law in their own hands. This must not happen – look at what happened at Azad Maidan (on August 11).”
The court has directed the Thane Commissioner of Police to provide police protection to Sukhramani and the complainant in the case,Prakash Kalwani.
The case has now been kept for further hearing on August 23 after the CID was asked to file an affidavit stating its stand on the case.
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