Mumbai: Amid controversy over the quality of
the bullet-proof vest worn by slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare
during 26/11, the Maharashtra government on Friday asked eight
senior officers about the missing status of a file relating to
the purchase of jackets on a high court direction.
Notices have been issued to state principal secretary and
seven senior police officers seeking explanation as to how the
file relating to purchase of jackets for the force between
2002 and 2004 had gone missing.
A reply has been sought from Principal Secretary (Home) P
K Jain; Additional DGP (planning & coordination) Subhash
Awate; Joint Commissioner of police (Administration) Bhagwant
More; DIG (Prisons) Rajnish Seth; Ashutosh Dumbre Additional
Commissioner of Police (Spl Branch 1) and Deputy Commissioners
of Police Vijay Jadhav, Sanjay Apranti and S R Paraskar.
Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil told reporters
that these officers have been asked to file their replies
within a month.
The government was acting on a direction of the Bombay
High Court, which has asked it to file a reply to a PIL filed
by a social activist alleging that jackets purchased by police
department were defective and led to the death of Karkare
during 26/11 terror attack.
The matter would be heard when the court resumes after
vacation next week.
Social activist Santosh Daundkar, who filed the PIL,
had learnt through an RTI application that the file had gone
missing following which he had moved the High Court seeking a
probe into the circumstances of its disappearance, his lawyer
Y P Singh said.
The PIL alleged negligence by public servants in purchase
of sub-standard bullet-proof vests at exorbitant prices. The
jacket worn by Karkare that fateful night was the one from
that lot, Daundkar stated in the PIL.
The petitioner said he made enquiries into the matter
and came across the "startling fact that the file containing
information about irregularities in the purchase had gone
missing".
He claimed he had "assembled a few incriminating elements
which reveal merciless corruption practised by public
servants who indulged in blatant violations of law in the
high-value procurement of jackets".
PTI
First Published: Saturday, January 02, 2010, 08:57