Court clears way for former Goa minister's arrest

The Bombay High Court's Panaji bench Thursday cleared the way for the arrest of a former tourism minister Mickky Pacheco by upholding a trial court order sentencing him to six months imprisonment for assaulting a government servant in 2006.

In his order, Justice A. R. Joshi has given Pacheco, a sitting legislator, a fortnight to surrender even as Pacheco's counsel claimed that the politician would be approaching the Supreme Court for relief.

Pacheco was accused of assaulting Kapil Natekar, a junior engineer with the state electricity department in 2006, when he was a cabinet minister.

A trial court had held Pacheco guilty in 2011, but a district and sessions court had released the politician with a warning in 2012. However, the latter's order was quashed by the high court Thursday.

Pacheco, a legislator from the Nuvem assembly segment in south Goa, is a self-styled supremo of the Goa Vikas Party which is supporting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led coalition government in the state.