Koregaon Bhima panel tells chief secretary to submit info on letter sought by Ambedkar
Commission Summons Maharashtra Chief Secretary Over Sharad Pawar’s Alleged Secret Note to Uddhav Thackeray.
VBA president and Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar (Express Archive) The Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry has directed the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra to submit information regarding a letter sought by VBA president and Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar.
In his application filed before the Commission in February last year, Ambedkar had claimed that Nationalist Congress Party NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar had on January 24, 2020 given a letter to then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, claiming the violence (in Koregaon Bhima on January 1, 2018) was a conspiracy hatched by the previous government under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis.
On January 8 this year, Uddhav submitted an affidavit before the commission through his lawyer Asim Sarode, saying if Sharad Pawar had given him such a letter, it should be in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
“I am not the CM now. So it would be appropriate to seek this letter from the current chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the CMO,” Thackeray stated in the affidavit.
Ambedkar’s lawyer Kiran Kadam then filed a fresh application requesting the commission to issue a notice to the CMO for producing the said letter, which was allowed by the panel.
“As per the orders of the Commission, a letter in lieu of summons has been sent to the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra on January 14. The Chief Secretary has been asked to submit information regarding the letter in question, through an authorised representative, by February 25,” said commission’s secretary V V Palnitkar.
Ambedkar had along with his application attached a news report stating that Pawar’s letter to Thackeray demanded the formation of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the Koregaon-Bhima violence and accused the Fadnavis government of protecting the conspirators.
Ambedkar initially requested the Commission to pass an order directing Sharad Pawar to submit a copy of the letter given to Uddhav Thackeray, along with the related documents. But in August last year, Pawar informed the Commission through his lawyer that he did not have a copy of this letter.
The Commission then allowed Ambedkar’s application to seek the copy of this letter and related documents from Uddhav Thackeray.
But, Thackeray too did not produce the copy of the said letter. Thackeray stated in his affidavit that during his tenure as CM of Maharashtra (November 2019 to June 2022) a transparent administrative procedure was followed to maintain records of all official documents and letters in his name in the capacity of chief minister at the CMO. “So if Sharad Pawar had given me any letter regarding the Koregaon Bhima violence, it should be there in the CMO,” Thackeray stated.
The two-member Commission led by retired High Court judge Justice J N Patel was formed by the state government for probing into the cause of violence in the Koregaon Bhima area in Pune on January 1, 2018, in which one person had died, and several others were left injured. Former chief secretary Sumit Mallick is the second member of the Commission.
“Next hearings of the Commission would be held in Pune between February 25 and February 27, 2026,” said Commissions’ lawyer Aashish Satpute.
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