A first-person report of how in Goa a cop who obliged a minister by filing false case against a lawyer…gets rewarded.

By Dr Olav Albuquerque

A DIVISION bench of the Bombay high court comprising Justice MS Sonak and Justice BP Deshpande delivered an erudite judgment quashing a false FIR and charge-sheet against me by one Avinash Palni, former secretary of the village panchayat of Salvador do Mundo. Palni alleged I had assaulted him and the then Sarpanch, Sandeep Salgaonkar, during a site inspection of illegal houses built on the hill slope of the private forest zone at Gangoz.
What is shocking is that these houses, some of which are sprawling bungalows, could not have come up without political patronage, because they have been given water and electricity connections. I had no personal interest in the issue at all as I was representing my 85-year-old client, John Menezes (now over 90 years of age) who could not walk properly as he had issues with his knees and could not walk steadily without assistance.
MENEZES had lodged an earlier complaint in 2014 about these illegal constructions which had sprouted because he owned two plots of land and the access to one plot of land was blocked by an illegal construction. He was compelled to sell his plot of land at below fair market value to a buyer with whom he was put in touch. Due to old age and health issues, he chose to sell rather than engage in a long-drawn battle in the courts.
John Menezes approached me to accept his Vakalatnama to appear in the Directorate of Panchayats to argue against these illegal constructions. Prior to the case starting in the Directorate of Panchayats, he had complained to the late governor of Goa, Mridula Sinha, and also the then chief minister of Goa, the late Manohar Parrikar whose offices had forwarded these complaints to the Directorate of Panchayats.
The notice of the earlier site inspection reached Menezes after it was over. So, this time when the village panchayat of Salvador do Mundo of which Sandeep Salgaonkar was the Sarpanch, sent him a notice of the site inspection on September 27, 2018 he phoned me to represent him during the site inspection. As he had already given me his Vakalatnama, after some initial reluctance, I agreed to accompany him to Goa.

SITE INSPECTION
AS a retired chief mechanical engineer of the Mumbai Port Trust, Menezes knew both of us may have faced an imminent attack during the site inspection if the Porvorim police did not send a vehicle with policemen to act as observers. So, he emailed the Porvorim police and also wrote to them seeking police presence during the site inspection. Interestingly, the Block Development Officer had also requested police presence during the earlier site inspection which did not take place.
After my client, John Menezes, sent a request for police presence on September 27, 2018, after reaching Goa, I approached the then SP (North) Chandan Choudhary (IPS) seeking police presence, but was told she was on leave and to approach the Deputy SP, Kiran Poduwal instead with a typed request. This is what I did. Poduwal appeared to be a soft-spoken man but still waters run deep.
When I approached Poduwal on the first floor of the Porvorim Police Station on September 26, 2018, one day prior to the site inspection, he asked me if I apprehended danger to my life. I replied in the affirmative and said those who had built the illegal houses would attack me and my client who had complained about the illegal constructions.
Poduwal then assured me he would send a police jeep. My high-level sources within the government told me Poduwal allegedly contacted the then Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte, through Shailesh Shetty, an accused later arrested for planning the murder of Vilas Mether, an RTI activist. Shetty was also arrested for allegedly selling drugs under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for being involved in the sale of dangerous drugs.

REVENUE MINISTER KHAUNTE
TOP sources within the government alleged that Shailesh Shetty told Poduwal on behalf of the then Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte not to send a police jeep to ensure both I and my client would be badly beaten during the site inspection the next day.
And so I was badly beaten by the then Sarpanch, Sandeep Salgaonkar, who is involved in the real estate business. He not only thrashed me brutally with a huge mob which comprised Raees Khan, Damu Redkar who has absconded to the UK, Bhagwant Ladu Naik and others, but threatened to implicate me in false criminal cases. He abused me in the most filthy language. I was the first to reach the Porvorim Police Station where the PI Santosh Dessai and his subordinate, PSI Sagun Sawant, made me sign blank FIR forms on the assurance I could pick up the FIR the next day.
Much later, Sandeep Salgaonkar arrived and when he was sure that an FIR was going to be registered against him, he called up his boss, Rohan Khaunte, local MLA and powerful revenue minister. Khaunte arrived at the police station with a huge mob and asked why I had been sent for a medical check-up? He demanded I should have been arrested immediately and thrown into jail. My Panchayat is giving you the witnesses. “Why did you not arrest him?” asked Rohan Khaunte.
Accordingly, although the medical report states I was examined at 4.05 pm, both Sandeep Salgaonkar and the secretary of the village panchayat of Salvador do Mundo, Avinash Palni, were sent for a medical check-up which clearly states there were no external injuries.

OUTSTANDING JUDGES
IT took five long years of agony for me to battle for justice against the Porvorim police and specifically Dy SP Kiran Poduwal who allegedly planned a false FIR 129/2018 against me and ordered his subordinates, PI Santosh Dessai and Sagun Sawant to upload the FIR 129/2018 against me immediately on the Goa Police Website.
My FIR against Sandeep Salgaonkar, Raees Khan and others was uploaded at least three or four days later. Were it not for these outstanding judges of the Bombay high court at Goa, I would have had to undergo a trial for offences I could not possibly have dreamt of committing.
Dy SP Kirn Poduwal has been promoted as SP of Police and rewarded with the Chief Minister’s police medal despite my complaints against him to the office of the DGP.