Two months, and your time starts now -- CM tells STF

Two months, and your time starts now -- CM tells STF
PRAFULLA MARPAKWAR

MUMBAI, NOV 21: With Congress chief Sonia Gandhi suggesting she would like to see the implementation of the Srikrishna commission report gather some speed, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has delivered a deadline to the Special Task Force (STF) set up to deal with the matter.

Deshmukh had gone to Delhi on Saturday where Sonia reviewed the performance of all the Congress chief ministers. Many of his detractors in the state unit used the minority card on the occasion to criticise Deshmukh, telling Sonia that the minorities were unhappy with the Congress because precious little had been done to implement the report. Sonia, too, it is learnt, wanted to see more action.

And action is what Deshmukh is promising. Two months, he told a meeting of top officials and key members of the STF which went late into Monday night, was all he would give them to sort out all legalities and book all those indicted by the commission.

``No more delays now,'' a determined Deshmukh told this paper on Tuesday. ``I have asked the STF and the home department to implement the recommendations within two months. They will reopen all the cases against indicted politicians and police officials and decide the cases on merit.

``No doubt there is a case in the Supreme Court in the matter. But there is no stay on the implementation of the recommendations. It has only asked the government to communicate as to what action it was taking on the report. Under such circumstances, legally, it is not difficult for my government to implement it,'' Deshmukh said.

The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Arun Bongirwar, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) M R Patil and Commissioner of Police M N Singh, apart from some STF members.

Deshmukh had first promised action on the report more than a year ago when he took charge but little happened other than setting up committees and forces. Nothing has yet been done to book people such as Bal Thackeray who were indicted by the commission. Even Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal's famous rub-in with Thackeray was in a different case and unrelated to the Srikrishna report. But this time, since two party heavyweights -- MPCC President Govindrao Adik and senior Rajya Sabha member Suresh Kalmadi -- are using this commission report to get even, it is believed there could be some movement.

Justice B N Srikrishna had submitted his report to the then Chief Minister Manohar Joshi on February 16, 1998. It was rejected by the Sena-BJP government which dubbed the report as ``biased''. The report had indicted34 police officials and had passed strictures against Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and former sena MP Madhukar Sarpotdar.