On 8th April 2022, hundreds of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) workers of Maharashtra protested in front of the house of Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar and some of them had pelted stones and slippers there. After the protests, as many as a total of 110 people including transport workers’ lawyer Adv Gunaratna Sadavarte were arrested on 8th April 2022 by Gavdevi police.
The 109 accused state transport workers are sent to judicial custody while Advocate Gunaratna Sadavrte has been sent to police custody for two days. The custody was remanded by the Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday 9th April 2022.
The counsel for the state transport employees Gunaratna Sadavarte was held responsible for the alleged attack during the protest. After his arrest at around 11 PM on 8th April 2022, he was first taken to Nair Hospital and then to JJ Hospital for a medical examination. His medical examination lasted for four hours at JJ Hospital. There were heated arguments from both sides when Sadavarte was produced before the Qila Court on 9th April 2022.
Public Prosecutor Pradeep Gharat had sought 14-day police custody of advocate Gunaratna Sadavarte. Sadavarte is accused of giving an inciting speech on Azad ground in Mumbai and inciting the workers to attack the residence of Sharad Pawar. But the court said “How can it be decided if he instigated the ST workers? Since the number of allegations is large, how to interrogate him?”
In response to this, Pradeep Gharat argued, “We have CCTV footage of the attack. Sadavarte is behind this and we still want to investigate who else is with him. We also suspect that some of the workers were under the influence of alcohol. They should definitely be given custody as we want to know if they are ST employees or not.”
Gunaratna Sadavrte’s counsel Mahesh Vaswani argued, “Many things seem to have been framed in the FIR against Sadavarte. Sadavarte has not spoken about the agitation anywhere in Mumbai. Gunaratna Sadavarte was not there even at the time of the attack. At the time of the attack, he was busy in the Court of Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal. Sadavarte had always said that ST workers should maintain the peace. Sadavarte was also not served a notice while taking him into custody. This shows the anger of the government. I have CCTV footage on the spot. But Sadavarte is not seen anywhere in it.”
Hundreds of enraged State Transport workers had broken into the residence ‘Silver Oak’ of veteran Marathi politician and NCP president Sharad Pawar on 8th April 2022, alleging that he did nothing to fulfil their demands. The employees of MSRTC have been on a strike since October last year, demanding that the transport corporation be merged with the state government so that they are entitled to salaries and benefits as state government employees.
