quot;Joshi misled Assemblyquot;

MUMBAI February 10: The Civil Judge senior division of the Thane Court has admitted a petition alleging that former chief minister Manohar Joshi misled the Legislative Assembly and citizens of the state while reading out a list of allegedly corrupt corporators and civic officials during the Winter Session of the legislature in December 1998. The petition, which was admitted by Judge A A Lad on January 27, 1999, alleges that the list read out on the floor of the House on December 15 was not contained in the Nandlal Committee report, which was tabled during the Winter Session of the state legislature. Instead, it was another list, prepared and sent by the deputy secretary of the Thane Municipal Corporation TMC on February 12, 1998. Therefore, some of the names in the Nandlal report were not in the list read out by Joshi in the House, the petition states.

The petitioner, former deputy mayor of Thane, Datta Kamat, whose name figures in the second list only, claims his reputation has been tarnished as thenames were published by several newspapers the following day. He also asks the former chief minister to substantiate the corrupt and unlawful acts he is alleged to have committed.

Kamat states in his petition: 8220;It seems due to some ulterior motive and or political interest he Joshi intentionally and deliberately took the names of such persons who were not concerned or involved in the inquiry conducted by Nandlal and therefore it amounts to defamation of the plaintiff and others.8221;

The Nandlal Committee, which has named 49 corporators and 35 officials of the Thane Municipal Corporation TMC as being involved in corrupt practices, was set up in January 1997 on the directions of the state government to inquire into corruption in road development projects, the civic Education Committee, Thane Municipal Transport buses besides violations of the provisions of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act BPMC Act, 1949. The report, which was submitted to the government on December 29, 1997, wassubsequently tabled in the Legislative Assembly on December 15, 1998.

The petition has named former CM Manohar Joshi, Urban Development Secretary K Nandlal and TMC Commissioner T S Chandrashekhar as respondents.