Ex-minister Bacchu Kadu sentenced to 3 months in jail for asaulting IAS officer

Indian Express

a day ago

A special court on Tuesday sentenced former state minister Bacchu Kadu to three months' imprisonment in a case over assaulting an IAS officer at the state secretariat in 2019.
The former MLA had lifted the officer's iPad and gestured to hit him, which the court said was not a casual act but one that conveyed the intention to cause harm.
The court said that merely because he was a sitting MLA at that time, he did not have the licence to deter a public servant by criminally intimidating him.
Kadu was found guilty under sections 353 (use of criminal force to deter public servant), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 504 (intentional insult) of the Indian Penal Code.
The court also granted him bail and suspended his sentence to allow Kadu to file an appeal.
'In the case at hand, the accused, during the heated arguments, lifted the iPad and gestured to hit the informant (the officer). It was a threatening gesture made with an intention to create an apprehension of imminent use of criminal force. Therefore, this action on the part of the accused was an assault on the informant. The violent and voluntary act as such cannot be named differently,' special judge Satyanarayan Navander, designated for the trial of criminal cases involving MPS and MLAs, said.
The case was filed at Marine Drive police station, alleging that on September 29, 2019, Kadu, along with others, barged into the office of IAS officer Pradeep P, who was then working as Information Technology director for the Maharashtra government.
Kadu demanded that a report be given immediately regarding the issues that occurred during exams held by IT the department, police said.
While the officer said he had called for a report, Kadu and his supporters became aggressive, abused the officer and picked up his iPad, threatening to hit him with it.
Before leaving they threatened the officer that their demands for the report should be met in two days.
The video of the incident was posted on social media by one of the supporters, the police had said.
Kadu had argued that he had gone to the officer with a genuine cause as at that time due to irregularities in the Maha IT portal, the task of recruitment was affected severely.
'Even if that is accepted, the approach of the accused was inherently improper. However noble the intention, one cannot address a public servant in such a manner or threaten him with harm to life or reputation,' the court said, adding that there are legal channels available to raise grievances and Kadu could have directly addressed the Chief Minister too.
'The object of punishment as such is not only to give understanding to the accused but also to the prospective wrong doers that the office of administrative officers should be respected and legal ways be chosen for addressing the grievances,' the court said.
During the trial, the officer was examined as the first witness who deposed about the incident. Other witnesses included another IAS officer present in the office along with other staffers.
Kadu's lawyer had said that there are no eyewitnesses, nor any CCTV footage. He also denied use of any criminal force or abusive language.
He had also claimed that the witnesses had not given an approximate time of the attack.
'Given that the incident occurred suddenly, it is unreasonable to expect witnesses to note the precise time. A difference of a few minutes is inconsequential where the rest of the testimony is consistent and satisfactory,' the court said.
The video recording of the incident, the court, said was not proven.
Kadu, a leader of the Prahar Janshakti Party, was in 2023, convicted by a Nashik court to one year jail term in a 2017 case for allegedly abusing and attempting to hit the then Nashik Municipal Commissioner, Abhishek Krishna. The appeal is pending before the Bombay High Court.
In 2024, Kadu was acquitted in a case of assault of a clerk at Mantralaya in 2011.