Goa cabinet grants pardon to jailed minister

The Goa Cabinet has moved a resolution granting pardon to jailed Nuvem MLA Francisco Miccky Pacheco, who was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for slapping a government servant in

2006. The Goa Vikas Party MLA, in jail for the last two months, had applied for parole to participate in the ongoing state Legislative Assembly session.  However, before filing his parole

plea, he had also moved a mercy petition before the state government seeking a waiver of the jail sentence. "His mercy petition was considered by the state Cabinet. All the ministers

have signed the resolution," sources in the Cabinet said. The Cabinet approval was granted on Wednesday afternoon. Thereafter, the file was sent to Governor Mridula Sinha for her

approval and would be sent back to the state home department after the Governor's signature, sources added. However, Sinha is currently out of station. After his conviction by a Goa

court, Pacheco remained absconding and surrendered before court on June 1, 2015. The former Goa minister has already spent two months in the Sada sub-jail. Meanwhile, social activist Aires

Rodrigues, in a letter to the Governor today, urged her to not agree to the very "high- handed" move by the Goa government to grant pardon to former Rural Development Minister

Pacheco under Article 161 of the Constitution. In the letter, Rodrigues drew Sinha's attention to the revived attempt by the state government to grant pardon to the jailed Nuvem MLA.

Rodrigues alleged that in a clear abuse of power, Goa government was clearly conniving and colluding with Pacheco, who is a political heavyweight, to derail due process of law and make a

mockery of the judicial system by trying to offer him pardon under Article 161 of the Constitution. The article grants powers to the state governor to "grant pardons, reprieves,

respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of

the state extends".