MUMBAI: In a volte-face, the NCP-led home department on Wednesday granted permission to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take over the inquiry in the Elgar Parishad case.

"We have informed the director general of police that the home department has no objection to entrusting the Elgar case to NIA," a bureaucrat said. "Accordingly, the Pune court will be informed."

Last month NCP chief Sharad Pawar wrote to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray saying a special investigation team led by a senior IPS officer should be set up to look into the Elgar Parishad case because the Pune police had implicated prominent citizens and innocent persons. Soon after, on January 24, the union ministry of home affairs issued a one-page order saying the NIA would suo motu take over the investigation.

Subsequently, the NIA moved an application before the Pune court to take over the investigation.

On February 8, the state government opposed the NIA plea for transfer of the case records, seized properties and proceedings to the special NIA court here. While the union ministry of home affairs passed the order, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress in the state asked the Pune police to produce proof to back the sedition charges made against the leading personalities arrested in the case.

Special public prosecutor Ujwala Pawar submitted before the court that the NIA had not given adequate reasons for the case to be transferred to it. The government contention before the special court was that at a juncture when the chargesheet had been filed and charges had been framed, it was wrong to entrust the investigation to a new agency.

Even as the Pune court is expected to give its verdict on the state plea on Friday, the home department on February 12 passed a three-line order saying it had no objection to entrusting the case to NIA.

The NCP had taken strong objection to the union ministry of home affairs decision to entrust the investigation to the NIA. At the time it was stated that in view of the gravity of the offence, the union ministry of home affairs unilaterally directed the NIA to take over the investIgation.

"It was wrong on the part of the MHA to step in, particularly at a juncture when the state government was in the process of setting up a special investigation team. Our view is that all those arrested by the Pune police on the grounds that they have links with Maoists were innocent and that the Pune police arrested them in haste," an NCP politician said.

