Nagpur, Dec. 12: Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has given the go-ahead for an "open inquiry" against former NCP ministers Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare and Chhagan Bhujbal for alleged corruption in public projects, the government told the high court today.
Advocate-general Sunil Manohar told Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench during a hearing on a batch of PILs, which had sought a CBI probe, that the state anti-corruption bureau (ACB) would carry out the investigation. The move signals the BJP-led government's first major confrontation with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.
Fadnavis, who holds the home portfolio and is likely to monitor the probe, had in the run-up to the Assembly polls promised an investigation if the BJP came to power.
Today, Manohar told the court the probe against Ajit and Tatkare, now the NCP state chief, related to alleged irregularities and corruption in irrigation projects during their stints as water resource ministers.
Bhujbal faces allegations of corruption and nepotism in the construction of a new building of the Maharashtra Sadan, the state government guesthouse in Delhi, and two projects in Mumbai.
The ACB would also look into the roles of officials of the departments concerned and contractors, Manohar told the court, after which the judges disposed of the PILs seeking a CBI probe.
"When bigwigs are being probed along with officials and contractors, there is no point in keeping these petitions pending," the bench observed, making it clear the petitioners could approach it again if dissatisfied with the inquiry.
The erstwhile Congress-NCP regime had opposed the PILs and refused the ACB permission for a probe - sitting on the bureau's file till the state elections - saying there was no substance in the complaints against the ministers. It had claimed a clean chit to Ajit and Tatkare from a panel headed by water expert and economist Madhav Chitale.
The ACB will begin the probe by recording the statements of the three NCP leaders over the alleged irregularities in which crores were suspected to have been siphoned off.
The Jan Manch, a campaign group which filed the PILs, alleged rampant corruption. It claimed that the cost of 38 irrigation projects in the arid Vidarbha - a region often wracked by farmer suicides and still reeling under drought - had increased more than four-fold during the tenure of Ajit and Tatkare as ministers.
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