Mauvin gets bail, Phadke surrenders

Sandesh Prabhudesai
7 June 2001  

The circle is complete, for the time being. Mauvin Godinho, yet another tainted ex-minister, was also granted bail today, though with conditions.

Following former deputy chief minister Dayanand Narvekar and former minister Somnath Zuwarkar, he is the third opposition MLA, who is now out of the police net.

For his involvement in a multi-crore power rebate scam, Godinho was arrested by the state police on 16 May. After hoodwinking the police and spending nights in the hospital under the pretext of chest pain, he had to spend one day in the custody.

After walking out of the police headquarters in Panaji, Godinho had immediately rushed for anticipatory bail, knowing that the BJP government would arrest him again in a separate case of power rebate scam.

The district court, on 25 May, refused his bail application while Godinho literally ran out of the court to evade arrest even before police came to know what the ex-minister was doing. He then succeeded in seeking relief from the high court, till the court reopens after summer vacation.

The high court has finally granted him bail today, but after making it mandatory to report to the police station for 10 days and make himself available for interrogation whenever necessary.

Meanwhile, Goa Cricket Association secretary Vinod Phadke, who is accused of helping Narvekar in a bogus cricket ticket scam, surrendered in the court today. He was granted bail, with similar conditions imposed on Narvekar, the GCA president.

Both of them have been debarred from functioning as GCA officials for two months while restrained from leaving the state without the permission of the police.

Goans are now waiting for further arrests of sons of a few politicians, who are allegedly involved in a sex scandal, run through a cyber cafe. Chief minister Manohar Parrikar seems confident that the day is not too far.

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