The Adarsh Commission report would be tabled before the legislature in the ongoing winter session, the Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday.
The statement was in reply to a petition filed by two BJP leaders seeking the early tabling of the report.
On Monday, The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) tabled the report in Parliament on Monday. “Now, it will be an obstruction of Parliament’s functioning if the [Adarsh Commission] report is not tabled before the Assembly,” Mahesh Jethmalani, senior counsel for the petitioners, argued before the court on Tuesday.
“The PAC report has specifically requested the State government to give it a copy of the Adarsh Commission report so that it can prepare its final report. You can’t obstruct Parliament's functioning by delaying the tabling,” Mr. Jethmalani said, while submitting copies of the PAC report to the court.
Government pleader G.W. Mattos later informed the court that the report would be tabled in the winter session.
“The government pleader has, on instructions, told the court that the Adarsh commission report is to be tabled in the winter session, which has already commenced from December 9. In view of this statement, the petition does not survive, and is disposed of,” a division bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and M.S. Sonak said while passing the order.
The two-member Adarsh Commission submitted the report to the State government in April 2013. The government has spent nearly Rs. 7 crore on the commission.
Since April 2013, the government did not table either the report or the Action Taken Report before the legislature, causing huge uproar by the Opposition.
This prompted the BJP leaders to file a public interest litigation petition before the Bombay High Court. The government initially requested the court to dismiss the petition on grounds that it was not maintainable. But after marathon arguments from both the sides, the court held that the petition was maintainable, and asked the government to give submission about what it planned to do about the report.
