No role of govt in FIR against publisher, author of ‘Sudhir Sukta’: Goa CM

Panaji, Oct 20: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday clarified that state government had nothing to do with registration of First Information Report (FIR) against former MLA Vishnu Wagh, author of a poetry anthology ‘Sudhir Sukta’. Addressing a press conference at the state secretariat at Porvorim in the city, he said as far as the FIR was concerned, the government had nothing to do with that though some media at the national level tried to portray that as if government was behind the registering of FIR. 'We have to be very clear. I believe in freedom of expression, one can write anything, but everything is subject to decisions by apex court and law. As far registration of FIRs is concerned, the police followed the procedure laid down by the Supreme Court of India,' he said. “An FIR cannot be avoided. You go into the details, find out if law has been broken and take appropriate action. Based on that police, took a decision... In fact I do not interfere with investigating officers,” the Chief Minister said. The Chief Minister also said that the process of selection of award was plagued by conflict of interest. Recently, a controversy had erupted over the book titled 'Sudhir Sukta', a collection of poems by Mr Wagh, a former BJP MLA from St Andre constituency in the state. An FIR was filed by activist Auda Viegas, who alleged that some of the poems in the book were disrespectful to women. The book was released by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar in 2013. It was shortlisted for an award by the Goa Konkani Academy. However, the state government scrapped the award, after controversy erupted over it. The Chief Minister said state literary awards were cancelled as there were some issues of conflict of interest. “We found that there was substantial conflict of interest. Therefore full process has been declared null and void. The conception that only the award for which ‘Sudhir Sukta’ was short-listed for was scrapped, was unfounded,' he said, adding that there were instances where those writers whose books had been short-listed for the awards were also involved in the selection process for the state awards. UNI