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Government unable to table Srikrishna report now, says Joshi

Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi today categorically announced in the legislative assembly that the state government was not in a position to table the Srikrishna Commission report, which probed into the 1992-93 Bombay riots, before the House during the ongoing session of the state legislature.

Joshi's announcement came after pandemonium broke out in the House, with speaker Datta Nalawade adjourning the assembly for 20 minutes and the Congress-led Opposition staging a walk-out.

Joshi said he had never assured the House that the Srikrishna Commission report would be placed before it, but what he had said was that the government would try to submit the report before April 20 if the seven-member committee, appointed to study the report, expresses its views whether it could be submitted along with the action taken report.

The chief minister said the government was willing to submit the report after it was fully reviewed that no recurrence of such riots could take place anywhere in the state. He declared that the government would try to table it in the next session of the legislature.

Earlier, Samajwadi Party members Shabir Patel, Sohail Lokhandwala, Fayyaz Ahmed, Nawab Malik and Mohamed Khan, raised the issue soon after question-hour was over, and displayed banners and shouted slogans against the government. They entered the well, climbed on to the podium, and surrounded the speaker's table demanding tabling of the report in a bid to stall the proceedings.

Even as the SP members were staging the demonstration, the Congress members remained in their seats.

On the other side, some members from the treasury benches trooped to near the podium to argue with the agitating members, asking them to return to their seats. Despite repeated rulings from the speaker, the SP members continued to argue with the speaker. When the speaker assured them that he would give them a chance to make their statement on the issue, they returned to their seats.

When Nawab Malik and Fayyaz Ahmed alleged that some top Shiv Sena leaders were indicted by the report and hence the alliance government was not willing to table it, the treasury benches took strong objection it. The speaker then directed them to ask the government when it would submit the report. No allegation should be levelled against anybody since the report was not declared, he said.

Making his statement, leader of opposition in the house, Madhukar Pichad said before giving any room for allegations to be levelled, the doubts in members' minds should be dispelled by tabling the report.

He said the chief minister had assured the opposition members during the tea-party hoisted on the eve of the budget session of the legislature that the Srikrishna report would be submitted in its current session. Later, Joshi had promised that it would be moved on April 20 with the action taken report after the report of seven-member committee was received by the government, he said.

UNI

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