Panaji, July 21: Echoes of the Delhi High Court judgement in the headline-grabbing BMW case were heard in the legislative assembly here, even as Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik Tuesday assured that witnesses who turned hostile would be booked for perjury.
Naik was being questioned during the monsoon session of the assembly when leader of opposition Manohar Parrikar said the Goa government should emulate the Delhi High Court in filing perjury cases against hostile witnesses.
He was referring to Monday’s court order which directed the police to file a perjury case against witness Sunil Kulkarni in the BMW case. The Delhi court called Kulkarni “a most dishonest, unreliable, untrustworthy and untruthful witness”.
“We will file perjury cases against the witnesses who are changing their statements and not coming to courts,” Naik said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the principal opposition party, has charged the police with systematically manipulating the legal process.
“The police are not investigating cases at all. Take for example in 2004 out of 2,127 cases filed under the Indian Penal Code, the conviction rate is barely one-fourth,” Parrikar said.
“Does the home minister realise that the evidence presented is so weak that most of the cases are either discharged or acquitted?” Parrikar said.
–IANS