Revenue Minister Babush Monserrate must be dropped from the cabinet to ensure that the current trial in the 2008 Panaji Police Station attack case in which he is the main accused is free and fair. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant must immediately drop Babush Monserrate so that the witnesses in the case, most of whom are police and government officials, are not pressurized or politically intimidated. Babush Monseratte is currently also facing trial for having allegedly raped a minor girl.
In a landmark Judgment the Supreme Court in 2014 had advised not to induct in the cabinet charge sheeted persons facing trial while observing that criminalization of Politics destroys people’s faith in democracy and that constitutional morality, good governance and constitutional trust expected good sense not to recommend any person with criminal charges to be appointed as a Minister.India’s highest Court had ruled that our democratic Republic polity hopes and aspires to be governed by a Government which is run by elected representatives who do not have any involvement in criminal offences.
In 2008 the BJP while in the Opposition had made Goa’s then Finance Minister Dayanand Narvekar to tender his resignation as Minister after he was charge-sheeted in the cricket ticket gate scam. Infact propriety required that Babush Monserrate should have himself stepped down while his trial is going on for very serious offences against the State.
