Faced with an impending FIR to be lodged against some of their leaders in the former Government in the Rs 35,000-crore illegal mining case, the Congress brass has preferred to keep mum, choosing not to comment on Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s statements to abide by the High Court ruling seeking that an FIR be lodged.

Bombay High Court Chief Justice Mohit Shah had ordered the State Government to file an FIR against 151 persons named by one Kashinath Shetye who filed a petition on the basis of the report of the Justice MB Shah Commission of Inquiry report which was tabled in Parliament in September last year.

“We have no comment to offer,” Congress spokesperson Sudip Tamhankar  said, when asked about the High Court order on Tuesday.

Shetye, a Junior Engineer in the Electricity Department, had first filed a complaint at the Goa Police Crime Branch. However, aggrieved with the failure of the police to investigate his complaint and file an FIR, Shetye approached the High Court.

The High Court directs the State Government to file complaints against 151 persons indicted in the Justice MB Shah Commission report, which includes two of the party’s Chief Ministers, besides bureaucrats, mine owners and the like.

Shah in his order has asked the Goa Government to file an FIR within six weeks. Reacting to the order, Parrikar said he would have his FIR ready naming the two former Congress Chief Ministers in the ordered time frame.

The Shah Commission report covers illegal mining in the time of two Congress Chief Ministers — Pratapsing Rane and Digambar Kamat — who were at the helm.

Tamhankar also said that once the State Government FIR report is filed, Shah himself would be required to come to Goa and depose before the police. “Once the FIR is filed, Justice Shah would have to be the first to come to Goa and depose before the police here,” Tamhankar said.

The tabling of the Justice Shah Commission report in Parliament had a cascading effect in the State, with bans from first with the State Government, later the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and surely and finally the Supreme Court which is hearing a public interest litigation filed by noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan along with green NGOs from Goa.