Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar has refused to comment on the Adarsh Society scam.
The Minister evaded questions on what would be the NCP's stand, in case Chief Minister Ashok Chavan's resignation was accepted by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Mr. Pawar was tight-lipped about what action the NCP would take against MLC Jitendra Avhad, who owns a flat in the Society.
Mr. Pawar also refused to talk about the Supreme Court's directive to supply the rotting foodgrain among the poor of the country.
In the city to address the State-level Lawyers' Meet organised by the NCP's legal cell, he raised the question of why there were no women representatives on the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, despite the fact that there were more than 32,000 women lawyers in the State. “Who will tackle gender issues at the legal level when there is no representation? How can we expect justice?” he asked the gathering of more than 2,000 lawyers.
Responding to the lawyers' demand that the Revenue Magistrates should have qualified judges, Mr. Pawar said that sometimes Ministers were given quasi-judicial powers because the position demanded it, and that it was impossible to change the practice completely.
On a lighter note, he added that even he had assumed the position of a judge few times, and in spite of having no legal background, even the Supreme Court had attested his judgment.
The Minister, however, agreed that there should be legal representatives at the zilla and taluk levels to look at the welfare of lawyers, and said that he would support the move.
