Ahmedabad, Aug 18 (PTI) Chief Minister Vijay Rupani today announced an inquiry commission headed by a retired High Court judge to probe cases of fires in godowns storing groundnuts.

A state government release said that Justice (retired) H K Rathod would head the commission set up under the Commission of Inquiry Act.

The move comes after the opposition Congress demanded a judicial probe into what it claimed was a groundnut procurement scam.

The state, in the past few weeks, has seen several instances of fire in godowns stocking groundnuts procured by the Centre's National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED).

While groundnuts worth Rs 3 crore was gutted at a warehouse at Sapar in Rajkot district in May this year, another fire destroyed stock worth Rs 28 crore in the district's Gondal taluka in February.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)