Panaji: South Goa Additional District and Sessions Judge P. Sawaikar has stayed the warrant issued by a trial court to search Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s official residence to look for missing former Goa minister Miccky Pacheco.

Pacheco, who faces six-month imprisonment and a fine of Rs1,500 (Dh87) for assaulting a junior engineer of the state electricity department in 2006, has been missing and untraceable ever since the Supreme Court upheld his conviction earlier this month.

The order, staying the search warrant was issued on Wednesday night, said Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.

“It was been stayed. Police had gone to appeal against the [lower] court’s direction to issue search warrant,” Parsekar said over telephone.

Pacheco has been untraceable and missing for over two weeks.

Following the stay, the Additional District Sessions Court is expected to hear arguments over the issue of the search warrant on Thursday.

Earlier, the Judicial Magistrate First Class (Margao) Bosco Roberts, was conducting proceedings related to the formal arrest of former archives and archaeology minister Pacheco, whose conviction for an assault was upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this month.

The search warrant had directed police to search Parrikar’s official residence in Delhi to trace Pacheco after the petitioner — lawyer-activist Aires Rodrigues, told the trial court that Pacheco was seen in the vicinity of 10, Akbar Road in New Delhi, Parrikar’s official residence.

Meanwhile, Art and Culture Minister Dayanand Mandrekar on Thursday suggested that Pacheco may have slipped outside Goa or escaped abroad.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event here organised by his ministry, Mandrekar also justified the limitations of the state machinery, including police, which has been unable to track down former Archives and Archaeology minister Pacheco, who has been dodging an arrest warrant following his conviction in an assault case for nearly a fortnight.

“Understand this, this person is not in Goa ... If is on the run, he is abroad, then how much can Goa’s machinery run after him,” Mandrekar said even as Pacheco has been untraceable since April 10.

Mandrekar, however, added that his comments were unofficial in nature and that only Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar would be able to give a correct reply.

Pacheco, whose party is part of the ruling BJP-led coalition government in Goa, is on the run after his conviction in a 2006 assault case was upheld by the Supreme Court a month back.