Karnataka HC says Murugha mutt seer's plea to sign cheques from jail lacks clarity
Bengaluru, Sep 29: The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday said there was lack of clarity in the request of chief pontiff of Murugha Math Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru to sign around 200 bank cheques from the prison where he is lodged in connection with a sexual abuse case.
The seer, now in judicial custody, was arrested on September 1 under the POCSO Act for allegedly sexually abusing two minor girls studying in a school belonging to the math.
Justice M Nagaprasanna who heard the plea of the chief pontiff directed his advocate on Wednesday to file the details of the cheques, and it was filed.
Today, the court studied the details and found the cheques payable to self.
The court said all the cheques had the payable details mentioned as Self RTGS" (real time gross settlement). Even cheques of huge amounts of Rs 14 lakh and Rs 30 lakh were self-addressed.
The court said there was no clarity in the request as the Seer wanted to sign the cheques to pay the salaries of 3,000 employees of the math and the 150 educational institutions run by it, but the plea, the court found, was odd as all the cheques were to "pay self."
State public prosecutor 1 Kiran Javali told the court that prima facie the submissions made by the accused did not seem bona fide. He requested the court to transfer the plea to the Sessions Court in Chitradurga for disposal on merit.
The High Court said that it was improper to request for self-addressed cheques to be signed by the accused in prison.
It said it had consented to hear the request only to make sure that the math employees did not suffer. The court said it would consider transferring the request to the Sessions Court.
The case was adjourned to Friday.
Earlier, a similar request was made by the seer before the Second Additional Sessions Judge BK Komala in Chitradurga where the POCSO case is pending. The judge has rejected the request. So, the seer approached the High Court with the same plea.
The chief pontiff has also been charged under the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act.
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
