Hemant Baburao Patil, 40, shot into limelight after he filed a PIL against Anna Hazare in the Delhi high court, accusing him of corruption and demanding his removal from the Lokpal panel.
He has bodyguards, uses costly cellphones and roams around in a swank Mitsubishi Pajero. A Marathi movie, Kartabgar, is being made on his life, directed and produced by Siddharth More. The film will be released next month.
Meet the 40-year-old, self-proclaimed anti-corruption crusader, Hemant Baburao Patil, president of the Rashtriya Bhrashtachar Virodhi Janshakti.
Patil shot into limelight after he filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against social crusader Anna Hazare in the Delhi high court, accusing him of corruption and demanding his removal from the panel set up to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill.
Patil’s is a typical rags to riches story. He worked as an attendant in a restaurant in Pune, which later closed down. He is now a contractor engaged in painting offices and buildings. “There are 32 cases that I have filed in the Bombay high court to expose corruption and malpractices, including one against chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, for allegedly withholding information about a flat in Wadala (Mumbai) while submitting an affidavit for election to the Rajya Sabha,” Patil told DNA.
However, the cases are yet to reach their logical conclusions. It is not for the first time that Patil has challenged Hazare on the basis of the very cause for which the latter is fighting. He had filed a case against Hazare in a court in Pune regarding the expenditure of Rs2 lakh from the corpus of his Hind Swaraj Trust to celebrate his birthday.
He said as per the laws relating to the management of a trust, such expenditure for personal reasons is not allowed and, if convicted, Hazare would face imprisonment for three years. Hazare has already been fined by the court for not attending hearings of the case. The next hearing is on April 25.
While the world is praising Hazare for his fearless fight against corruption, Patil does not hesitate in levelling allegations of corruption against the crusader. “In the past 15 years, Hazare has been on tours and has undertaken agitations. Crores of rupees have been spent on these initiatives. This expenditure is not shown in the audited report,” he claimed.
Patil said he was attacked in 2005 after filing a case against Hazare, and then again in 2006. He alleged that even after he filed a case against Hazare in Delhi, he was intimidated by two persons in Delhi, but he did not file a police complaint. “Two days ago, some goons threatened my bodyguard in Pune and I filed a police complaint,” he said.
Patil said he fully supports the Jan Lokpal Bill, and claimed his organisation has followers in Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra and Goa.
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