DCP to inquire into allegations against Thane civic chief: Maha govt to HC

The Maharashtra government today informed the Bombay High Court that a Deputy Commissioner of Police would inquire into the allegation that the Thane civic commissioner threatened an activist for filing a PIL over shoddy road concretisation work there.

The high court had earlier this week expressed displeasure over the police's handling of the inquiry and had asked the Thane Police Commissioner to either transfer the probe to a senior official or it would consider appointing a judicial officer to carry out inquiry.

A division bench of Justices A S Oka and Riyaz Chagla was today informed by the assistant government pleader that the probe will now be carried out by a Deputy Commissioner of Police.

"Since the probe will now be carried out by the DCP, there is no need for us at this stage to appoint a judicial officer to carry out inquiry. The DCP shall submit an inquiry report before us on July 12," the court directed.

The activist, Pradeep Patil, had last year filed a public interest litigation (PIL) raising the issue of shoddy road concretisation work in neighbouring Thane district.

Patil had in January this year filed an affidavit in his petition, alleging that on December 19 last year he received a call from Thane Municipal Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal summoning him to the latter's residence for a meeting.

When Patil went to Jaiswal's residence, he was threatened, the activist alleged in the affidavit.

The Thane Municipal Corporation's counsel Ram Apte had refuted the allegations and said Jaiswal never met Patil.

The HC had then directed the police to carry out an inquiry and take into account the CCTV footage and call data records (CDR) of the petitioner.

The police initially said it had completed its inquiry and found the allegations to be false. But later, the police informed the court that the inquiry was still on and that they were looking into Patil's CDR details.