Maha secretariat fire: Gadkari demands probe by SC judge

The Bharatiya Janata Party national president Nitin Gadkari on Friday demanded a probe by a sitting or a retired judge of the Supreme Court into the huge blaze that engulfed Mantralaya, the secretariat of Maharashtra, in Mumbai on Thursday.

The fire badly exposed the poor disaster management plan of Maharashtra Government, Gadkari said here, adding that credibility of the state government was at stake as rumours were doing the rounds that important files pertaining to various scandals might have been destroyed.

"It would be appropriate for the Prithviraj Chavan government to constitute a probe panel under the chairmanship of a sitting or a retired judge of the Supreme Court to dispel the mystery of the fire," he said.

Ridiculing the ruling Congress-NCP combine for the failure to check the fire safety standards at Mantralaya, the seat of power, Gadkari said the state government was not in the position to protect the people.

Earlier, Gadkari, alongwith BJP workers, courted arrest to protest against the corruption and rise in the prices of essential commodities.