Srikrishna report put on hold till April 20

The Chief Minister informed the Opposition that the Advocate General felt it would be improper to table the report without the ATR. Joshi said his government had therefore set up a committee headed by the Chief Secretary and comprising the Home Secretary, the Principal Home Secretary, the Law Secretary, the Director General of Police the andthe Commissioner of Police, Mumbai. He said the two-volume enquiry report ran into almost 70 pages and it would normally require at least four to five months to prepare the ATR, but in view of the urgency of the matter, he had asked the committee to prepare it by April 20.

Joshi said he would like the ATR to be finalised before the April 20 deadline. However, he said, the ATR would first be placed before the Cabinet and only after its approval would it be tabled along with the main report in the Legislature. Joshi’s statement provoked Opposition members who raised slogans forcing adjournment of the House for 15 minutes. When the House reassembled, leader of the Opposition Madhukar Pichad said that despite Munde’s assurance that the report would be tabled in the second week of the session, the govt had backtracked on the issue.

The decision had its echo in the Parliament where, leader of the opposition Sharad Pawar, said the BJP-Shiv Sena Government wound up the Srikrishna Commission, which was appointedto find out the people behind the riots.