He woke up as early as 4 am on the day he had to oppose the suspension of sentence awarded to Salman Khan in the hit-and-run case. Termed “cooperative” and “intelligent” by his friends and colleagues, prosecutor Sandeep Shinde had prepared for the case with little time on his hands. A fan of actor Aamir Khan, Shinde has had to argue with the likes of legal bigwigs Harish Salve and Amit Desai in a span of three days. Behind the black gown, the public prosecutor of the state government says he often has to make do with minimum information. The “Salman Khan matter”, as people like to call it in the courts, has kept Shinde busy for most part of the day. Right after arriving from another hearing post the Salman case, he enters his chamber. “In advocacy, you don’t have to read a lot. You need to see the points and argue,” he says, looking up for a moment while signing legal papers. [related-post] Sundays are no exception when it comes to preparation on cases. His wife Supriya says he designates the first day of the week for legal work. She has spent the whole day in front of the television, keeping a close watch on the case her husband was arguing. He loves to eat fish cooked in Maharashtrian style, according to Supriya. “He leaves home at 9 am and reaches by 9.30 pm,” she says, adding that playing badminton keeps Shinde’s stress level in check. A library in his home with over 1,500 books keeps the voracious reader in him busy. A friend of his for 15 years, Dr Charuchandra V Durve, who plays badminton and has “breakfast tea” with Shinde every morning, finds him extremely “human”. “He has great integrity, and is someone who does a thorough study of his cases,” he says. The lawyer also has an unusual hobby — something he does for amusement and has done a course on. “I read people’s horoscopes,” he says, adding that he did a two-year course with a city-based astrologer. Shinde was born to Kashinath Shinde, a military personnel, and Vijaya Shinde, a homemaker, on January 17, 1962 in Kalyan. Soon after finishing his LLM in 1988 from Mumbai’s Government Law College, he started his practice in the trial courts. He continued with his practice on the other side of bar until he was appointed as district judge in 2000. He even served as a solicitor or a joint secretary in Maharashtra’s law and judiciary department. But when he came back to the High Court as a government lawyer, he handled cases like the Adarsh scam and the Shakti Mills gangrape. The lawyers who have worked with him praise Shinde for his sincerity. “I have known him for almost 22 years. He has tremendous knowledge of both civil and criminal law,” says Kumar Saste, also a prosecutor. Purnima Kantharia, who argued on behalf of the state in the same case 12 years ago, feels Shinde’s cooperation and good grasp of the subject makes their job easier.
