Contempt Petition Filed Against Sanjay Raut Over ‘Relief Scam’ Remark
Indian Bar Association has filed a contempt petition-cum-public interest litigation (PIL) against Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut and others for levelling “false, scandalous and contemptuous allegations” against judges of the Bombay High Court, reported news agency ANI.
The association of lawyers cited Raut’s allegations against high court judges and the entire judiciary after BJP’s Kirit Somaiya was given interim protection from arrest in a cheating case as the main reason behind the petition, according to ANI.
“As per Sanjay Raut, the courts, on one hand, granted relief to people related with BJP but not granting relief to the accused belonging to Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) etc. His indication was towards the no relief by the courts to the jailed Ministers Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh,” the statement further read, as quoted by ANI.
Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, home minister Dilip Walse Patil, and Saamna Editor Rashmi Thackeray have also been made the respondents in the contempt petition.
Last week, Raut questioned the Bombay high court order granting interim protection from arrest to Somaiya in a case related to the alleged misappropriation of funds collected to save decommissioned warship INS Vikrant from scrapping.
“Save Vikrant is a scam. Crores and crores of rupees were collected and embezzled. A relief from the court does not mean one is absolved of the corruption charge. The collected money did not reach the Raj Bhavan. This is what Raj Bhavan states. Why have people lost faith in judiciary? It is only because of this,” he said.
“The relief scam is a recent stain on the judicial system. Relief scam is severe than al-Qaeda and (26/11 terrorist Ajmal) Kasab. How can only people from only one party be beneficiaries of this scam? This is the question. The matter of misappropriation of Vikrant funds is not over yet. Culprits will be punished. Wait and watch,” he added.
A case has been registered against Kirit Somaiya and his son Neil under Sections 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (Punishment for criminal breach of trust) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in Mumbai’s Trombay Police station.