In a development that came as an embarrassment to the Maharashtra BJP, a Kolhapur sessions court on Saturday sentenced its sitting MlA from Ichalkaranji, Suresh Halwankar and his brother Mahdev, to three years’ imprisonment in a six-year-old electricity theft case.
Delivering a verdict on a power theft case filed by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company ltd (MSEDCl) in 2008, Kolhapur district sessions Judge AA Sahanapure held Halwankar brothers, who run two powerloom units at Ichalkaranji, guilty of offences registered under Sections 135 (tampering with electricity meter) and 138 (interference with meter) of the Electricity Act, 2003.
The Judge, however, suspended the execution of the verdict for 60 days, thus giving time to the Halwankar brothers to approach the higher courts. The prosecution’s contention was that the Halwankar brothers were using the tampered electricity meter at their powerloom unit. The tampered meter was recording 45 per cent less power consumption.
In a raid conducted on one of the powerloom units of Halwankar brothers in September 2008, the MSEDCl officials found that the electricity meter had been tampered with. Following an investigations, the officials pegged the worth of power theft at Rs 20 lakh.
On his part, convicted BJP MlA Suresh Halwankar, who faces a threat of losing his membership in the State Assembly, said that he had been “framed” in the case at the instance of his Congress rival in Kolhapur district Kalappa Awade, who is contesting the lok Sabha polls from Hatkanangale constituency. He said he would soon challenge the lower court’s verdict in the Bombay High Court. Suresh Halwankar said that the case was initially filed against his brother Mahadev, who was running the powerloom unit.
“However, after I was elected to the Maharashtra Assembly from Ichalkaranji in 2009, I was dragged into the case and booked as an accused in a supplementary charge-sheet on the orders of the then State Energy Minister Sunil Tatkare. I was framed in the case at the instance of my political rival Kalappa Awade,” Suresh Halwankar said. Meanwhile, the Maharashtra BJP has defended Halwankar, saying that he had been falsely implicated in the case at the behest of a Congress leader in Kolhapur district.
“The case against our sitting MlA is borne out political vendetta. Suresh Halwankar is innocent and we stand by him fully. We are confident that he would clean in the case in a higher court,” Maharashtra’s BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari told The Pioneer on Sunday evening.
