By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Senior advocate Ujjwal Nikam, who was the special public prosecutor(SPP) in Mohsin Sadiq Shaikh’s murder case, has opened up for the first time on why he withdrew from his position of the special public prosecutor (SPP).
While talking to regional news channel ABP Majha, on November 30, Nikam said that it was one Member of Parliament and a journalist who opposed his appearance in the case.
The journalist and the MP who were not named by the Nikam allegedly opposed his appointment as SPP because Nikam had been felicitated by the Hindu outfits.
On May 19, 2017, Maharashtra state government cancelled Nikam’s appointment as the SPP in Mohsin Shaikh’s murder case following a request raised by the Nikam himself. RV Chavan, the Section Officer at Law and Judiciary Department, passed the order regarding the same.
Mohsin Shaikh, a Pune-based engineer in a private firm, was allegedly attacked by the members of Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) on June 2, 2014.
In his interview to ABP Majha, Nikam said, “One day, I got to know that a journalist and a MP had written to the government, with clippings of media reports, that ‘Ujjwal Nikam has been felicitated by Hindu organisations’ in the past, due to which he will not be able to do justice.”
According to the Nikam, the journalist and the MP had written to Prithviraj Chavan – then the Chief Minister of the state – much earlier before his resignation and government took no cognisance of their complaints.
“I have been felicitated at many places in Maharashtra. I am not aware who is in the photographs with me,” said Nikam in the interview.
Nikam talked about his apprehension in the case that if the accused were acquitted – even after his all efforts – the journalist and the MP would tell people that they had already informed the government about this.
“So with honest intentions, I resigned from the case and did not mention any reason,” said Nikam.
If the documents procured by the Indian Express to be believed, it could be Hussain Dalwai, the Rajya Sabha MP and Congress leader, who wrote a letter to Maharashtra CM in 2014 stating that Nikam should not be assigned as SPP in the case.
Another name could be of social activist Anjun Inamdar, the member of Rashtrapremi Kruti Samiti, who wrote to Chavan in the same year of 2014 opposing Nikam’s appointment as SPP.
TwoCircles.net tried to contact Uwal Nikam on two occasions. One was immediately after his withdrawal from the post of SPP, and second after Nikam’s interview on November 30. We got no response to the concerned questions from Nikam’s office.
After Nikam’s withdrawal from the case, Mohsin’s father Sadiq Shaikh -who was stunned by this development- tried to contact Ujjwal Nikam and Maharashtra state government showing faith in Nikam’s intentions and his work with the case.
Unanswered from all sides, Mohsin’s family applied for the appointment of Rohini Salian as SPP in the case. By the time Rohini Salian’s appointment could get confirmed, Ujwala Pawar appeared in the case as SPP and has been representing the family of Shaikh ever since.