Mumbai: The father of a 23-year-old woman, who died in 2021 after falling from her Pune residence’s balcony, has approached the Bombay High Court claiming that he should be heard before passing any order in the PIL by BJP leader Chitra Wagh wherein it is alleged that state cabinet minister Sanjay Rathod was linked to the girl’s death.
In February 2021, several photographs of a tribal girl with Rathod and 12 audio clips went viral on social media. The girl later died by suicide. There was public outcry for investigation. At the time, Maha Vikas Aghadi headed by Uddhav Thackeray was in power. Rathod, who was an MLA from Digras Assembly constituency, had to resign then.
Wagh then approached the HC seeking registration of an FIR. She had sought a probe by a special investigation team or transfer of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
However, after the split of Shiv Sena in 2022, Rathod joined the Eknath Shinde faction and is currently in government with Wagh’s party BJP in Maharashtra.
On Tuesday, the girl’s father filed an application in the HC urging the court that he should be heard before any order was passed.
His advocate Pranav Badheka mentioned the application before a bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar seeking an urgent hearing in the application. He said that the father was not seeking any relief but the family’s name was being maligned, and that the plea was politically motivated.
Badheka said: “The applicant (father) has no grouse or complaint against anybody. This PIL is politically motivated. The applicant has four daughters and every time the issue comes up in the media they face issues in their matrimonial homes.”
The HC has kept the plea for hearing on September 2. Last week, Wagh’s PIL had come up for hearing before the same bench when her adviser sought to withdraw the plea. The judges had then expressed displeasure over “game” being played through PILs.
Public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar had informed the bench that around the time of suicide, Rathod was in Nagpur. The police had taken Rathod’s voice samples for the probe and the mobile phone was sent to the Forensics Science Laboratory (FSL).
The FSL report stated that the voice in the viral clip was “similar” to that of Rathod, but was not “identical”. Hence, he was given a clean chit. The same was mentioned by Shidne while inducting Rathos in the cabinet in 2022.
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