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 so that the witnesses in the case, most of whom are police and government officials, are not pressurized or politically intimidated. 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.
In 2008, the BJP while in the Opposition had made then finance minister Dayanand Narvekar tender his resignation as minister after he was charge-sheeted in the cricket ticket gate scam. In fact propriety required that Monserrate should have himself stepped down while his trial is going on for very serious offences against the State.
