Inaction in Gawli case invites Court wrath

NAGPUR, April 30: The State Government came in for scathing attack from the High Court (HC) Bench here today for its failure to take action...

NAGPUR, April 30: The State Government came in for scathing attack from the High Court (HC) Bench here today for its failure to take action against the jail officers responsible for gangster Arun Gawli’s alleged criminal activities from jail between March 1991 and December last year.

“It is beyond our thinking as to how this could happen. If a criminal can become more stronger inside the jail why maintain jails?” the Bench, comprising Justices Ashok Desai and S B Mhase, remarked.

Although reluctantly, the Court granted adjournment of the proceedings till May

2, following a plea to that effect by Counsel B P Jaiswal, who appeared for Inspector General (IG) of Prisons M G Narvane. Jaiswal made the plea to enable three of the jail Superintendents, file their say. All the five jail officials, including Narvane, were personally present in the Court today in pursuance with the latter’s directive of April 25 seeking their presence and submissions, if any, as to why action should not be taken for dereliction of duty.

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Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Prisons D J Chaudhari, Superintendent of Yerawada prison at Pune D M Jadhav and Superintendents of Harsul prison at Aurangabad M J Ghorpade and L D Samudrawar are the other officials. DIG Chaudhari was the Superintendent of Yerawada Jail till his transfer on promotion in March 1992. All the three crimes which Gawli is alleged to have committed while he was lodged in Yerawada jail, occurred during Jadhav’s tenure.

Earlier, the Court observed that none of the visitors, shown in the records submitted by the Prison Department, were part of the conspiracy hatched inside jail for the five crimes in which Gawli is alleged to be involved. On the other hand, those who were part of the conspiracy, do not figure in the records.