MUMBAI, OCT 6: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) notched a major victory today when one of its ministers in the ruling alliance, Shobhatai Phadnavis, was acquitted by the Justice Pratap Committee probing into the multi-crore pulses scam.Presently the Minister for Employment Guarantee Scheme in the State Cabinet, Phadnavis was Food and Civil Supplies Minister when the scam was alleged.Phadanvis thus becomes the second BJP Minister to be acquitted by a high-level inquiry committee after the then Irrigation Minister Mahadev Shivankar was given a clean chit by Justice Puranik Committee.Disclosing the observations of the Justice Pratap Committee to mediapersons, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi said the committee even approved the practice of procurement pulses through the National Cooperative Consumer Federation and Maharashtra State Cooperating Marketing Federation without inviting tenders.``In fact, it was for these reasons that the Congress had levelled charges of corruption against Phadanvis. Now, Justice Pratap Committee has recommended that pulses should be procured from these organisations without inviting tenders as they have expertise and are of repute,'' Joshi remarked. Replying to a question, Joshi said there was no question of reallocating the Food and Civil Supplies portfolio to Phadanvis as her department was not changed because of the appointment of a probe panel.Allegations of a scam were first made during the Winter Session of the State Legislature at Nagpur in December 1995, when the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) demanded dismissal of Phadanvis from the cabinet for her alleged involvement in the multi-crore pulses purchase scandal.The CLP had alleged that there was rampant corruption in procurement of 25000 tonnes of Chana Dal, 1700 tonnes of Masur Dal and 5,000 tonnes of Tur Dal.Their main allegation was that such a huge quantity of pulses was purchased without inviting tenders.Subsequently, Joshi had appointed a one-man inquiry committee headed by Justice S C Pratap, a retired Judge of the High Court.Significantly, none of the Congress Legislators, including Madhukar Wasnik, who had taken a lead in raising the issue in the Legislative Council, appeared before the Committee despite several notices served on them.Following a furore in both the Houses of the State Legislature, the alliance government decided to procure pulses by inviting tenders. ``However, our experience with private traders was not good as by and large they were unable to supply pulses in such a large quantity to the State Government,'' Joshi informed.Joshi said the Justice Pratap Committee has approved the decision of Phadanvis to procure pulses through the federations and has come to the conclusion that there was no corruption involved in the deal.The committee recommended that the Government should continue to procure pulses through the same organisations and the transaction should be approved by a committee comprising Ministers of the Food and Civil Supplies, Finance and Dairy Development and Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies.
