The Bombay High Court on Thursday asked the Shiv Sena what the party and its former member Narayan Rane had done following the N N Vohra Committee report on a nexus between politicians and organised crime syndicates.

“It’s an accepted fact that organised crime syndicates and terrorists cannot survive without police support or political patronage,” said Justice J N Patel, part of a Division Bench with Justice Amjad Sayed.

The court made the observation following an affidavit by Rane that his remarks on a nexus between politicians and terrorists had been made in the light of the Vohra committee report that had examined the criminalisation of politics. Rane’s affidavit, in turn, was in response to a PIL by Solapur-based Purushottam Barde, who submitted that the leader had said after 26/11 that such a nexus exists.

Justice Patel said a very responsible politician has come out with this disclosure. “Now the people want to know what the secret is and what the government has done about it,” Justice Patel concluded.

Justice Patel observed that the Vohra panel report had come out in 1993 and that Rane was Chief Minister in 1999 when the Shiv Sena-BJP was in power. “We want to know if the Shiv Sena was aware of the Vohra Committee report and what they did,” Justice Patel said. “They could have asked for the removal of the Chief Minister,” he added.

Not sparing Rane either, the court asked his lawyers: “When did your client first read the report? You were once the Chief Minister. Did you come across the report then?”

... contd.