A Tale Of One Incident , Two People , Three Months And Four Arrests !

 

BY R.K.MISRA

This is a tale of one incident, two people, three months and four arrests.

So it is that ninety days  after the Morbi suspension bridge collapse which killed 135 people , including 50 children, Jaysukh Patel, promoter of the  Rs 1200 crore Oreva group employing a workforce of over 5000 remains elusive and untraceable, but activist Saket Gokhale, hauled up for a tweet pertaining to it, continues behind bars after four arrests and counting.

Premier investigating agencies which claim the prowess of ferreting an ant out of a molehill have abysmally failed in arresting the industrialist who remains on the run but has filed for anticipatory bail which is expected to be heard on february1. And all this after a  Gujarat High Court division bench led by its Chief Justice Aravind Kumar had suo moto taken up the bridge collapse case and has been pursuing it with equanimity.

Oreva group is a Morbi based clock and home appliance manufacturer which was given  the contract by the town municipality last year to repair maintain and operate the british-era bridge for 15 years and collect revenue from its ticket sales. Though  nine of the ten others who were named in the 1262 page chargesheet filed on January 27 had been booked soon after, Patel who figures in it  as the main accused , remained out of reach. Published reports attributed to police sources claim that he had fled to the US and later returned to the country while another claimed that there was a look-out notice for him at ports and airports. The warrant for his arrest was issued over two months after the bridge collapse. The FIR filed by the police did not name Oreva and its promoters but only “ agencies responsible for maintenance and management of the hanging bridge” as the main accused.

In sharp contrast, the Gujarat police  was all ginger and gusto when it came to  Saket Gokhale, a spokesperson of the Trinamool Congress. He was detained in Jaipur, Rajasthan on December 6 for a tweet he posted  and  subsequently brought to Ahmedabad and arrested with an FIR filed against him for forgery and printing defamatory content- following a complaint by a citizen. Remanded to two days police custody, he was granted bail  thereafter. Gokhale is a journalist-turned RTI activist turned politician

On December 1,Gokhale had shared a news clipping about a purported Right to Information application which claimed that prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Morbi on November 1, after the bridge collapse, cost Rs 30 crores. Soon after the Press Information Bureau(PIB) of the government of India tweeted a fact check that the information was fake while the newspaper management  said that such a news item had never been published and was a fake created by someone to look authentic.

While the TMC spokesperson was hauled over the coals for a tweet  endorsing an alleged fake news item, what about the  mischief monger who faked the news item  and planted it in the social media.? Did Saket fake it? If not, who did and why was he not traced and arrested ?The FIR ,though has been  filed under Indian Penal Code sections 465, 469 and 471(all forgery) and 501(printing or engraving known to be defamatory).

Nonetheless, his ordeal was just beginning. Granted bail in Ahmedabad, he was soon re-arrested in another case filed in Morbi district wherein he was accused of allegedly “promoting enmity between classes during the elections” apart from spreading fake news about Modi.

In the second case Gokhale was charged under Section 125 (promoting enemity between classes) of the Representation of people’s Act .The allegations made in the second case were on lines similar to the first one except for the technicality wherein the election official in the Morbi Assembly constituency who filed the FIR, had stated that the fake news had been tweeted at a time when Model Code of Conduct was in effect in Gujarat due to the elections in the state. Presented by the police  in Morbi court  with a plea for sending him to judicial custody, Gokhale sought bail. The police plea was that he was a politician who was aware that an election is underway in Gujarat, model code of conduct is in place and the tweet could impact the electoral process. Court rejected the police argument and granted him bail.

In hindsight, the police process seemed less matter-of-fact and  more mirthful . Gokhale was arrested for the second time on December 8 when the voting was long over in Gujarat and counting of votes was in progress and granted bail on the day the ruling  BJP was celebrating its  history making victory in the state . The argument of  impacting the electoral process lay in tatters !

Nevertheless, the Gujarat police was in Delhi  on December 29 to arrest Gokhale for a third time-this time for allegedly misusing the  money collected through crowdfunding. Brought to Ahmedabad and remanded to police custody  till January 5, the former journalist  has been refused bail by the magistrate’s court and the sessions court. This time he faces charges of cheating ,forgery and criminal breach of trust. “Being a political worker, he might “hamper and tamper with evidence”, if released on bail at this stage, additional sessions judge A.B.Bhojak noted.

 The High Court has also asked him to apply for bail after the chargesheet is filed. His lawyer has informed the court that he suffers from multiple ailments and is required to take 14 medicines daily. Also that the onetime-RTI activist and social worker had disclosed during his crowdfunding campaign that the money was required for running his campaign as well as for sustaining himself. All incomes were reflected in his bank accounts which were audited and income-tax paid, his lawyer Asim Pandya, argued in court.

On January 25,Gokhale was arrested for the fourth time-this time by the Enforcement Department which has alleged misuse of money collected through crowd-funding. Arrested in Ahmedabad, he is in ED custody until January 31.

Gokhale calls it a frame-up for being anti-establishment, his party TMC terms it vendetta politics, and the official establishment, a process of law. Judge for yourself.

(This column appeared in Orissapost and Lokmat Times on  January31, 2023.The same afternoon Jaysukh Patel surrendered in Morbi Court at 3pm )

http://odishapostepaper.com/edition/4380/orissapost/page/9

http://epaper.lokmat.com/lokmattimes/main-editions/Nagpur%20Main/2023-01-31/6