5 more members added to Chandiwal committee

Maharashtra Government on Monday appointed five more officials to the high-level enquiry committee headed by retired High Court judge Kailash Chandiwal. The onemember committee comprising judge Chandiwal was set up on March 30 to conduct a judicial inquiry into former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh’s allegations made in a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20 against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.

As per a GR issued by the state government on Monday, deputy collector of MCGM Bhaiyyasaheb Behere has been appointed as the manager of the committee, advocate Shishir Hire has been appointed as the legal member of the said committed, Subhash Shikre (retired sessions court registrar) has been appointed as the registrar, Harshvardhan Joshi (retired junior clerk of Bombay HC) has been appointed as the junior clerk and Sanjay Karnik (retired office superintendent of court) has been appointed as the committee's office superintendent.

In a notification issued on May 3, the State government delegated powers of a civil court to the probe committee.

Singh wrote the letter after he was shunted from the post of the Mumbai police commissioner and appointed as the DG, State Home Guards.

The CBI had earlier conducted a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) into the corruption allegations against Deshmukh and had eventually filed an FIR last month against Deshmukh and other unknown persons for criminal conspiracy for alleged attempt to obtain undue advantage of improper and dishonest performance of the public duty.