A Maharashtra NCP minister said he was overruled by CM Thackeray in handing the Elgar Parishad case to NIA

MUMBAI: Shiv Sena and NCP appear to be on a collision course over entrusting the Elgar Parishad probe to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). "The CM has the powers," Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh, who is from NCP, said on Thursday. "He overruled my proposal and granted consent to the NIA to take over the probe."

Deshmukh said that before taking a major "policy decision", the state government should have told the Union ministry that there was a need to reconsider its decision. "We should have consulted the advocate general," he said, adding, "I was overruled by the CM."

The Elgar Parishad was a gathering held by Dalit groups and others at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, a day before violence broke out between Dalits attending the annual Koregaon Bhima battle commemoration in Shirur taluka of Pune district and villagers from the area.

While the then BJP-Sena government blamed and arrested some "Naxal sympathisers" who had supported the Elgar Parishad, NCP, Congress and some Dalit groups blamed Hindutva forces for the violence.

After coming to office in alliance with Sena, NCP suggested that the Elgar Parishad case built by BJP was false. On January 10, Sharad Pawar wrote to Thackeray saying prominent citizens and innocent persons had been arrested by the Pune police in the case and the investigation should now be entrusted to an SIT headed by a senior IPS officer. The Union government acted swiftly to quash that possibility and issued an order for the NIA to take over the investigation.

NCP lodged a protest against the move. Even the Pune police challenged the proposal before the Pune special court which is hearing the case. The court is expected to pass an order on Friday.

A bureaucrat said that when MHA issued its notification on January 24, the home department submitted it to the law and judiciary department for opinion in view of Pawar and Deshmukh's reservations. The law and judiciary department replied that it was well within the powers of the Union ministry to entrust the investigation to the NIA in view of the gravity of the offence. The file, along with the opinion of the law and judiciary department, was then submitted to Deshmukh, who was not keen to entrust the inquiry to the NIA.

The file, along with the views expressed by Deshmukh, was submitted to the CM, who upheld the opinion given by the law and judiciary department. Accordingly, the home department on Wednesday issued an order saying it had no objection to the NIA talking over the inquiry.

