The Asian Age: Mumbai: Sunday,
September 18, 2016.
The Bombay
high court on Friday directed a social activist to remove chief minister Devendra
Fadnavis’s name from the list of respondents in a PIL alleging a scam worth
crores of rupees in the supply of tablet computers to class 8 students of
municipal schools. The court asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)
and other departments of the civic body concerned to file a reply to the
petition, which was filed last month.
The division
bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice M.S. Sonak asked petitioner
Prithvi Maske, a social activist, to remove the CM’s name after the government
pleader told the court that Mr Fadnavis was not directly concerned with the
matter. The bench also asked respondents to file reply in affidavit and posted
this matter for further hearing on November 18.
Advocate
Narendra Dubey filed the petition on behalf of Mr Maske, president of NGO
Sangharsh, claiming that the tablets provided to students in BMC schools are
poor in quality. The petitioner has sought an independent investigation into
the alleged scam by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) or the CBI.
Mr Maske said
he came to know about the alleged fraud when he went through the features of
one of the tablets being used by a child in his neighbourhood. Following this,
he filed several RTIs from August 2015 onwards seeking details of tender allotment
and distribution of these tablets in municipal schools in Mumbai. The petition
has said that from details collected though RTI he came to know that there was
a scam in selection, allotment and purchase of tablets.
The petition
has alleged that the company, which was given the job of providing tablets to
the BMC, did not have experience.
.JPG)
.JPG)
