The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for preventing the police from registering a criminal case against a Congress legislator’s money-lender father and imposed a staggering Rs 10 lakh fine on the state government.
A bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly rebuked Deskmukh, saying, “The (former) chief minister should not have interfered with the criminal justice system.”
The apex court fined the Maharashtra government while dismissing its appeal challenging the Rs 25,000 imposed on it as cost by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court. The high court had imposed the fine on March 5, 2009, on a petition by farmers of Buldhana district, alleging the police refused to register a criminal case against Congress legislator Dilipkumar Sananda’s father, Gokulchand Sananda, a private money lender.
The high court had imposed the fine after finding “gross interference from the executive” in shielding a private financier belonging to the ruling party.
