Mumbai Beat

The audit department last month sent a report to the revenue department with some specific cases where the officers had reduced the RV of properties and the BMC had lost revenue to the tune of crores as the officers had later reduced the RV of the properties.

Ram Mhatre, chairman of the revenue department explained that in the absence of any guidelines for determinig the RV, the officer fixes a certain amount and a public notice issued. The residents have 15 days to complain to the BMC if they do not approve the rate fixed.

Later, a meeting is fixed between the residents and the officer to resolve the differences between their respective assessment. But theofficer has the final say.

The audit department went into the details of some cases in the R-West ward office at Borivli from where they had received 171 complaints from the residents. When they went into the details of the cases, they realised that the officer in charge had reduced the RV of 28 bungalows drastically whereas the RV of other properties in the same area was much higher. In this case, the BMC lost over Rs 50 lakh.

Cuffing of lawyer: HC orders relief

The Bombay High Court has ordered the state government to pay token damages of Rs 5,000 to Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa which took up the cause of a legal practitioner who was handcuffed and paraded by the police.

The order emanates from a public interest petition filed by the bar council against the Tasgaon police, district Sangli, which handcuffed Tasgaon-based senior lawyer Jaysingrao Mane in April 1992.

The petition claims that the lawyer was unjustifiably handcuffed throughout the bus journey from Tasgaon to Sangli, andlater paraded in the Sangli bazaar before being lodged in the prison. Mane maintains that being the secretary of the Bhrashtachar Nirmoolan Samiti (Committee for Removel of Corruption), his activities did not necessitate any handcuffing. However, he claimed, it was done to humiliate him in public.

The court ordered for affidavits by the officials of the Tasgaon police station. Inspector-in-charge Shivaji Rupnar stated that he had no occasion to know about Mane’s arrest. Head constable Prabhakar Khade, who actually handcuffed Mane, claims that he did so only to ensure that Mane and his associates do not run away from the scene. However, there was no personal animosity towards Mane, he claims. Moreover, he has apologised for the incident. Interestingly, Home Department’s principal secretary (Appeals and Security) G C Tripathi has also apologised to the court for the incident. He admitted that Tasgaon police did not follow the guidelines regarding handcuffing laid down by the Supreme Court.

The divisionbench of Justices A V Sawant and T K Chandrashekhara Das has ruled that the head constable acted irresponsibly. But considering the apology tendered by the state government and police, the court did not order compensation of Rs 50,000 to Mane as was originally sought by the petitioners. The court has ruled that a token sum of Rs 5,000 be paid to the bar in the interest of justice.

Arrest warrant against PSI

A non-bailable arrest warrant against a police sub inspector in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu was issued for his failure to execute a non-bailable warrant against an accused in a fraud case.

In his recent order Metropolitan Magistrate 20th court Mazagaon M M Shirpurkar directed the Commissioner of Police, Coimbatore to arest PSI Raju of Saravanampatti police station and produce him before the court on October 30 to explain why action should not be taken against him in a two-year-old case.

In 1996 Bipin Joshi, proprietor of Chemi Enterprises, Mumbai had supplied chemicals worth Rs 1.69 lakh toCoimbatore-based company Peninsula owned by J Singarevelan. Peninusla paid a sum of Rs 10,000 by demand draft followed by a cheque of Rs 1.78 lakh which bounced. Joshi filed a case of fraud at the Mazagaon court. When Singarevelan failed to honour a summon order, a non-bailable warrant was issued against him on February 2, 1998.

At Coimbatore PSI Raju refused to effect the warrant and allegedly threatened Joshi’s employee who had gone there to ensure that Singarevelan recieved the summon order.

The magistrate also issued a fresh non-bailable warrant against Singarevelan.