PUNE, DEC 15: The Bombay High Court has ordered the State Government to present before it the Suresh Joshi report on former municipal commissioner Arun Bhatia's charges about rampant corruption and irregularities in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).A division bench, comprising Chief Justice B P Singh and Justice Sharad Bobade, asked the State Government to present the report in a sealed cover. The bench directed the PMC and State Government to file affidavits by January 12 in response to a writ petition filed by five Pune citizens who are seeking, among other things, directives to the State Government for dissolution of the PMC in view of the large scale irregularities.The petition has been filed by Lt. Col I P Lobo (retd), Meena Dayal, Sujit Patwardhan, Sam Dalal and Vijay Paranjpye against State of Maharashtra and the PMC. The next hearing is slated for January 17.The State Government had appointed the then Principal Secretary of Urban Development Department Suresh Joshi to probe the various allegations made by Arun Bhatia. Joshi had submitted his report in June this year. But the government has not made the report public till date.The petitioners have urged the High Court to issue necessary orders to the State Government to dissolve the municipal corporation because of its default in performance of statutory duties, abuse of powers and disregard of provisions of law. The petition has extensively mentioned the representation made by Arun Bhatia in September 1999, in which he has levelled 19 allegations. These charges are about illegal recruitment of employees, carving out roads without inviting tenders, purchasing material without inviting tenders, non-recovery of property tax and deliberate under-assessment of properties, failure to spend more than 38 per cent of the development budget, amounts recovered by the corporation not credited to the municipal fund and not reflected in the budget, illegal expenditure without budgetary provisions, illegal lease of the corporation's property at Savarkar Bhavan to Sai Service Ltd in violation of the development control rules and failure to take action against various illegalities.
