Chief Minister (CM) Devendra Fadnavis said the work on Metro III was taken on fast track and Delhi Metro corporation has been asked to carry out a study to extend the line beyond Dahisar to Bhayander. The report, of the corporation will come to us within a couple of months, he said.

He was attending a series of functions in Mira Bhayander Township last evening where he made this announcement.

The CM performed the Bhoomi Pooja for the new administrative building of the MBMC, flagged of new buses and participated in other programmes of providing water supply to the city.

In his speech, he made a specific reference to the recent suicide of Thane Builder Suraj Parmar and said there were allegations that the suicide was the result of pressure.

I would like to state after close examination that at any cost be it Thane or any other corporation or civic body such ‘Abdra Yuti’ nexus or evil alliance between corporators, builders and civic officials will not be tolerated if it has happened. He also handed in a warning that those concerned would be put behind bars and wewill not hesitate at all.

In his speech, he further said by 2017 all the cities and towns in the state will be free from defecation, cent percent toilets would made available then to these places.

He asked the civic corporations to within a couple months make the Right to Public services work totally online.

The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on Sunday handed over Rs.1 crore to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for drought relief.

Mumbai batsmen Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane handed over the cheque to Fadnavis on behalf of the MCA at the Wankhede Stadium in the presence of MCA president Sharad Pawar.

This is the second successive year of drought in Maharashtra.

MCA vice president Ashish Shelar on October 18 declared that the association will donate the amount in the last match of the ODI series.

“The Maharashtra government has already announced drought. Therefore, today (October 18) the MCA in a meeting has decided to give Rs.1 crore as relief fund to tackle the drought,” said Shelar.

Two Bangladeshi nationals, who illegally entered India and then travelled to Mumbai, managed to obtain Indian passports using bogus documents procured from Pusad town near here, police said.

The documents produced for obtaining the passports by Mohammad Azim Gazi Majed Gazi (27) and Habil Rubel Sheikh (25) were found to be fake during verification, Pusad Police said.

Police are now looking for a Mumbai-based lawyer and a middleman, who they suspect, helped Gazi and Sheikh in getting these documents from Government offices in Pusad.

The duo managed to get documents like ration cards, domicile certificates and voter i-cards from local municipal and revenue offices, said Sub-Inspector Rajendra Naik, who is Investigating Officer in the case.

Gazi and Sheikh used these fraudulently procured papers to get their passports, he said.

The two were lodged in Mumbai Central Jail, serving a six-month sentence after being found guilty by a Thane Court of illegally entering India.

Police got their custody on October 20 and brought them to Pusad, where they were produced before a Court which remanded them in police custody till October 26.

The case came to light when the two produced the bogus documents and also their passports while seeking bail in the illegal entry case.

“The fake documents could not have been obtained by the two without the help of some influential local persons,” Naik said.

The officer said they have sought help from the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa to identity and track down the lawyer, who helped them.

The Maharashtra Congress has roped-in all major leaders of the state committee to woo the voters during the upcoming elections to various municipal corporations, nagar and gram panchayats.

The party leadership will make inflation, specially pulses price rise and increasing cases of farmers’ suicide as its poll plank and is confident of overpowering rival BJP in the elections.

According to senior party leaders, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Ashok Chavan has asked each and every party leader to come forward and canvass aggressively for the polls.

Former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, senior leader Narayan Rane and former MPCC chief Manikrao Thakre have been asked to go to the voters by camping in villages, a leader said.

Even former Cabinet ministers from Mumbai, Naseem Khan and Varsha Gaikwad have been roped-in to address poll rallies in some parts of the state, he said.

MPCC General Secretary Ganesh Patil said, “Our (party) president Ashok Chavan has directed every party worker to be geared up and consider these elections very seriously, as BJP has been clouded from all sides because of its anti-poor policies that would take BJP to its lowest depth of defeat in these elections.”

Naseem Khan, considered to have a stronghold over the minority community, said, “During the last one-and-half year rule at the Centre and one year of power in the state, the BJP has miserably failed on all the fronts which has disappointed the people.”

“Communal harmony is dying in the state, crime record has gone up two times while pulses prices have gone up three times, since this government has come to the power. Moreso, our Chief Minister is allocating his relief fund to a dance troupe, which has angered the public,” said Khan, who has been entrusted to hold multiple rallies in Kolhapur to woo the voters.

The elections to civic corporations of Kolhapur and Kalyan-Dombivali apart from three newly carved out nagar parishads, 68 nagar panchayats and 2,352 gram panchayats in different parts of the state are scheduled to be held on October 28, November 1 and 6.

The counting of votes will take place on November 7.

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu flagged off a marathon in the city to sensitise people against corruption in the country.

‘Vigithon: A run for corruption free India’ was organised by public sector lender, Union Bank of India.

“It is an attempt at bringing in all stakeholders together on a common platform to create sensitisation against corruption. We have to start an inclusive battle against corruption,” Union Bank said in a statement.

The run was organised as a precursor to the ‘Vigilance Awareness Week’, which is going to be observed from tomorrow till October 31.

Vigilance awareness week is observed every year since 2000 as per the guidelines of the Central Vigilance Commission. The objective of observing it is to reaffirm one’s commitment to fight corruption and as a result enabling good governance in the country.

Several school children, general public, customers and employees of the bank participated in Vigithon. The run is being organised at other metro centres across the country as well.

The Bombay High Court has set aside the conviction and one-year sentence awarded to a clerk of the HC who was allegedly caught taking bribe after a trap was laid by the Anti-Corruption Bureau on a complaint of a lawyer.

The court noted that “mischievously” setting “bait to a public servant” and then trapping them is “practically amounting to abetment of an offence and artificially creating a crime”.

In such cases, it would be the duty of the court to properly scrutinise the evidence of the complainant to ascertain the reliability of his claim and “to unmask his ulterior intentions”, it said.

Justice Abhay Thipsay had on October 13 allowed an appeal filed by Shridhar Chavan, who was working as ‘chobdar’ (clerk) with a high court judge, challenging an order passed by a sessions court convicting and awarding him one-year sentence for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 1,000 from an advocate in October 2010.

According to prosecution, the accused had demanded bribe from the complainant advocate to get his placed for hearing before the court immediately.

The advocate, after paying the accused an initial sum of Rs 500, lodged a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau which laid a trap and allegedly caught the accused red-handed on October 11, 2010 while accepting the remaining bribe amount of Rs 500.

Justice Thipsay, after perusing the facts and evidence of the case, observed that in trap cases there should be satisfactory evidence of initial demand of bribe by the public servant concerned and if this demand has not been proved satisfactorily, then the whole prosecution case gets seriously affected.

The HC also took note of the fact that the application filed by the complainant advocate on behalf of his client was to come up before another judge and not before the judge with whom the accused was associated with.

“Courts have taken great caution in ascertaining the nature and type of complainants in deciding whether an accused is guilty or not. The one who mischievously sets bait to a public servant and then traps them after they have acted on the luring of such complainant is recognised as a ‘fishing complainant’,” the court said.

“Such traps are deprecated as practically amounting to abetment of an offence and artificially creating a crime. In such cases, it would be the duty of the court to properly scrutinise the evidence of the complainant to ascertain the reliability of his claim and to unmask his ulterior intentions,” Justice Thipsay said.