Fadnavis Moves Breach of Privilege Notice Against Maha Home Min

Anil Deshmukh on Tuesday had alleged that Fadnavis tried to cover up the matter in 2018.

Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis.

(Photo: PTI)

Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday, 10 March moved a breach of privilege notice against Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, accusing him of making a false allegation against him in the House with respect to the death case of architect Anvay Naik in which journalist Arnab Goswami is an accused.

Deshmukh on Tuesday had alleged that the Fadnavis government had tried to cover up the matter in 2018 despite an FIR being filed.

“What Deshmukh said was contempt of court and also amounted to preventing me from conducting my duties as a member of the Legislature,” PTI quoted Fadnavis as saying in the House, adding that a Supreme Court ruling stated that the FIR filed by the state government under Indian Penal Code Section 306 regarding abetment to suicide was prima facie wrong.

What Was the Anvay Naik Case?

In his suicide note, interior designer and architect Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik said that he and his mother were in acute financial distress, which was why they had decided to take their lives.

According to the note, their financial troubles had been caused because large payments owed to his company Concorde Designs Pvt Ltd by three clients, including Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV.

Goswami, along with two others, has been booked under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The case was reopened by Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in May 2020, after Naik’s wife and daughter approached Deshmukh.

The Raigad police had previously filed a report to close the case in April 2019, following which Naik’s wife Akshata had consistently pushed for the case to be reinvestigated, putting out several videos about the matter on social media.

Goswami and Republic TV have denied the allegations, and claimed that 90 percent of the amount due to Naik’s company for its work on the channel’s Mumbai studio had been paid as per the contract.