Bombay High Court orders premature release of gangster Arun Gawli

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has ordered the premature release of gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli, who was serving his life sentence in Nagpur Central Jail.

The court pronounced the judgment on Friday, “holding that Arun Gawli would be entitled to the benefit of 2006 policy and he cannot be excluded from the benefit of policy by resorting to the rule of ejusdem generis (of the same kind).”

The state has been directed to make a decision on his release within a period of four weeks from the date of the order.

Gawli’s application was rejected by the respondents on the count that the state government had come up with a fresh notification dated December 1, 2015, by which a convict under the MCOCA Act was held entitled to the benefit of the said policy decision.

Advocate Nagman Ali, appearing for Arun Gawli, had argued that Gawli would be entitled to the benefit of the 2006 notification because he was convicted in 2009, and therefore, a subsequent notification that came into force in 2015 would not be applicable to him.

The state had registered the petition filed by Gawli on the ground that the 2015 notification specifically excludes convicts under the MCOCA Act from the benefit of the said policy.

It was further submitted that even the 2006 notification makes it clear that convicts under acts like the NDPS Act, TADA act, MPDA, etc., are not entitled to the benefit of the policy.

It was contended that the terminology that is used is ‘et cetera’, and therefore even a conviction under the MCOCA Act would not be entitled to the benefit of the 2006 policy by taking resort to the rule of ‘ejusdem generis’ (of the same kind).

In August 2012, a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court sentenced Gawli to life imprisonment for the murder of a Shiv Sena corporator in March 2008.

The conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court.