In a great relief to Gujarat’s senior Cabinet Minister Babu Bokhiria, the Porbander Additional District Court on Monday gave him clean chit in a controversial case of illegal mining.
Bokhiria was sentenced to three years of imprisonment by the Porbander Chief Judicial Magistrate in June 2013. Apart from him, two others — Bhima Odedara, who was already behind the bars in a murder case and Odedra’s son laxman — were also convicted in the same case. All the three were given conditional bail by the Porbander Sessions Court.
The Minister also got stay from the Gujarat High Court, which directed him to move the district court of Porbander to appeal against the lower court’s verdict. On this background, the Porbader Additional District court acquitted him and others in alleged `54.19 crore mineral theft case.
Porbander based Saurashtra Chemical limited’s assistant manager Umesh Bhavsar had lodged a complaint against Bokhiria and others in Bagvadar police station on the outskirts of coastal Porbander town for alleged theft of limestone in tune with `54.19 crore on October 5, 2006.
The political heavyweight and MlA from the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi is the only Cabinet Minister from important Saurashtra region in Anandiben Patel Ministry. He was rewarded a Cabinet birth in the earlier Modi Government after he defeated Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president and then sitting MlA from Porbander in the 2012 Assembly elections.