MUMBAI, Sept 15: Chief Minister Manohar Joshi's son-in-law Girish Vyas has termed the two petitions filed at the Bombay High Court, alleging that he used his father-in-law's clout to get a prime plot dereserved in Pune, as ``politically motivated.'' Vyas today filed an affidavit in the court explaining his position.Vyas claimed that the public interest petitions were part of a smear campaign being run by the political opponents of his father-in-law. He also challenged the credentials of one of the petitioners, corporator Nitin Jagtap, saying that Jagtap had a criminal background and there were several police cases pending against him.Two more affidavits were filed today, one by Pune Municipal Corporation's city engineer Madhav Harihar and the other by former Pune Municipal Commissioner Ramanath Zha, in whose tenure permission was given for Vyas' shopping complex.Harihar's claimed that Vyas had obtained all necessary clearances from the PMC. He added that reservation of the Prabhat Road plot was liftedin September 1996. Therefore, contrary to the allegations levelled by the petitioners, the shopping complex was built after the new plan was sanctioned. The two PILs allege that the PMC had changed the DC rules to allow Vyas to construct a multi-storeyed shopping complex on a plot reserved for a school.
