Parmar case: High Court breather for 4 Thane corporators

In a breather for four municipal corporators from Thane charged with abetting builder Suraj Parmar’s suicide, the Bombay high court on Tuesday granted them interim protection from arrest till December 2.

Sudhakar Chavan (Independent), Vikrant Chavan (Congress), Hanumant Jagdale (NCP) and Najeeb Mulla (NCP) had earlier approached the HC seeking pre-arrest bail as they feared arrest after their names appeared in Parmar’s suicide note.

Advocate Shirish Gupte, on behalf of the applicants, argued that Parmar had given various reasons for committing suicide including admitting his mistake of not paying anything to officers. Mr Gupte told the court that the applicants were corporators and not officers. The advocate also pointed out that Parmar had a tax liability of nearly Rs 150 crore, there were some PILs pending against him, and he was not in a position to hand over houses to investors as he had not got an NOC from the civic body. Mr Gupte claimed that the applicants’ names had been scratched out and it could not be said that they had abetted Parmar’s suicide.

On the other hand, special public prosecutor Raja Thakre argued that the applicants were not cooperating with the probe, had been absconding ever since the case was registered against them, their phones were found switched off, and the sessions court had rejected their anticipatory bail plea. He said taking into account the magnitude of the case and the fact that Forensic Science Laboratory’s report had revealed the applicants’ names apart from their names being found in Parmar’s notebook, relief should not be granted to them. However, Justice Ravi K. Deshpande granted the applicants interim protection from arrest till December 2 upon depositing a surety of Rs 1 lakh each.

The judge asked the applicants to hand over their mobile phones with SIM card and passports to the investigating officer of the case within two days.

The vacation bench of the HC also directed the applicants not to attend the office of the municipal corporation after Mr Thakre said that with most witnesses from the municipal corporation, it was possible the applicants might influence them.