A House committee, which went into the circumstances leading to the assault on a traffic sub-inspector at the Vidhan Bhavan on March 19, has recommended the revocation of the suspension of three of the five MlAs who had earlier faced the axe for their alleged involvement in the incident.
In its report submitted to Speaker Dilip Walse-Patil, the seven-member House committee — headed by senior-most member Ganpatrao Deshmukh of the Peasants Workers’ Party (PWP) — recommended that the suspension of three MlAs — Rajan Salvi (Shiv Sena), Pradeep Jaiswal (Independent) and Jaykumar Raval (BJP) — be revoked on the ground that it had not found any evidence to suggest their involvement in the assault on the police officer concerned.
The House committee, however, held two other MlAs — Kshitij Thakur of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) and Ram Kadam of the MNS — guilty of their involvement in the assault on Assistant Police Inspector (Traffic) Sachin Suryavanshi.
Thakur and Kadam, who had been arrested following the incident, are currently on bail.
API Suryavanshi was thrashed by a group of legislators on the Vidhan Bhavan premises on March 19, a day after he fined Thakur — MlA — notorious for his money and muscle power — for a traffic violation on the iconic Worli Sea link in south-central Mumbai.
The assault on API Suryavanshi was a direct fallout of the previous day’s incident — which saw Suryavanshi stop the vehicle of Kshitij and fine him for over-speeding on the Worli Sea link. Kshitij had been fined by Suryavanshi travelling at a speed of 101 km per hour on the Worli Sea link, where the stipulated speed limit is 50 kmph.
API Suryavanshi was thrashed by some MlAs on the Vidhan Bhavan premises, where he had been summoned on March 19 to present his side of the story.
Having received the Ganpatrao Deshmukh-led House committee report, the Speaker read out the recommendations.
The committee has, among other things, has found the conduct of traffic sub-inspector Sachin Suryavanshi with legislator Kshitij Thakur on the Bandra Worli sea link on March 18 as “objectionable” and recommended departmental inquiry against him.
According to the committee, API Suryavanshi was indeed assaulted on the Vidhan Bhavan premises. However, it found that the injuries sustained by Suryavanshi were not serious.
While recommending the revocation of the suspension of the three MlAs, the committee wanted that its recommendation be implemented during the budget session of the State legislature.
Acting on the recommendations made by the House committee, State legislature Affairs Minister Harvardhan Patil moved a resolution seeking the revocation of the three MlAs — Salvi (Shiv Sena), Jaiswal (Independent) and Raval (BJP).