PIL in SC demands enquiry into Praful Khoda Patel’s role in Dadra & Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar’s suicide

The Supreme Court will treat as PIL a complaint against Lakshadweep administrator and BJP leader Praful Khoda Patel requesting an enquiry either by a special investigation team led by a senior IPS officer or the CBI and closely monitored by the Supreme Court or the Bombay High Court into the death of seven time Dadra & Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar.

In his letter to the Supreme Court, Loktantrik Yuva Janata Dal national president Saleem Madavoor stated that Mohan Delkar ended his life on February 22, 2021 by hanging himself from a ceiling fan at Hotel Sea Green South in Marine Drive.

He had left a 15-page suicide note in which he had written the names of Praful Khoda Patel and several other administrative officials from the Union Territory of Dadra & Nagar Haveli.

The PIL has been registered under grievance management with the number 51020/SCI/PIL/(E)2021.

Soon after Delkar’s death, a SIT was formed and two weeks later, a case under Sections 306 (abetment to suicide), 506 (criminal intimidation), 389 (putting person in fear or accusation of offence, in order to commit extortion), 120(B) (conspiracy) of the IPC and Sections 3(1),(N), 3(1)(P), 3(2) (2), 3(2)(5,a) of the Prevention of Atrocity Act, 1989, was registered at the Marine Drive police station in Mumbai.

In his letter, Madavoor stated that Delkar’s son Abhinav had named nine people in the complaint including Administrator Patel, DM Sandeep Singh, then SP Sharad Darade, deputy DM Apurva Sharma, sub-divisional officer Manasvi Jain, police inspectors Manoj Patel and Rohit Yadav, Fatehsingh Chauhan and Dilip Patel (Talathi).

Praful Khoda Patel was the administrator of Dadra & Nagar Haveli since 2016 and continued in the role when the current Modi government merged Dadra and Nagar Haveli with Daman and Diu in 2020. He is a former one-term MLA from the Himmat Nagar constituency in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district and served as home minister in Gujarat after Amit Shah had to resign from the post following his arrest in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s alleged fake encounter case.

Delkar belonged to a tribal community and was elected from a constituency reserved for Scheduled Tribes. It is believed that the suicide note and Delkar’s various letters sent to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla detailed Khoda’s atrocities against him including humiliation.

Madavoor points out in his letter that the investigation team has to question powerful politicians and officials including civil servants. So, the SIT is not able to move forward with the enquiry.

From the statements of the SIT itself, it is clear that they couldn’t question any of the accused. They have not cooperated with the SIT enquiry, he said.

“The Supreme Court has registered the complaint as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and the SC register will decide the date of hearing. An injustice has happened in Delkar’s death and there must be an investigation. The SC can accept or reject the case,” said Saleem Madavoor.

He had earlier filed a petition in the Patna High Court to investigate the alleged sexual abuse of girls at a state-funded shelter home in Muzaffarpur in Bihar. The Patna HC had issued a notice to CBI based on this petition.