A Pakistani judicial panel will arrive in India on Wednesday.

The four-day visit of the panel is a part of the probe into the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, wherein the panel members will take down the statements of the officials involved in the 26/11 Mumbai killing probe.

According to Islamabad, the visit is an important step and will supposedly quicken the trial of the Mumbai terror accused, reports zeenews.india.com.

The judicial commission will first arrive in Delhi from Lahore before heading to Mumbai.

The constitution of the commission includes two prosecutors from Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, five defence lawyers and officials from the Interior and Foreign Ministries.

The panel on Thursday will record the statements of Ramesh Mahale, an investigating officer, and R.V. Sawant Waghule, the magistrate who recorded the confessional statement of the lone surviving Pakistani gunman Ajmal Kasab, says the report.

Officers from the forensic department of Nair Hospital and JJ Hospital, who conducted autopsies on the terrorists and victims, will be questioned.

Islamabad has argued that it is necessary to furnish the statements of the investigative officer and the magistrate before the anti-terror court, since the charges against seven LeT militants lodged in a Pakistani jail are based on Kasab's statement.

Meanwhile, the state of Maharashtra has been slapped with a bill of Rs 8.62 crore by the director general of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) for providing security to Ajmal Kasab outside the Arthur Road jail.

A report in a daily publication, DNA, said that the outstanding sum pending is around Rs 20 crore, which the state has to pay for the 175 ITBP personnel deployed outside the jail ever since the 26/11 accused was tried in a special court session held inside the jail.

The first bill was sent by ITBP for a sum of Rs 10.87 for the services from March 2009 to September 2010, and the second bill for Rs 8.61 crore is for the period of October 2010 to September 2011, says the report.

The state has refused to pay the sum, saying that the attack was not aimed only at the state of Maharashtra, but on the country, and hence, the bill needs to be taken care of by the central government.

We were about to take up the issue with home minister RR Patil when the fresh bill arrived. We have two options: Either we pay, or the central agency waives off the bill, Medha Gadgil, principal secretary, home department was quoted as saying by the report.

However, the central agency refuses to accept the state's claim.

Instead of replying, the ITBP directorate sent a fresh bill, thus refusing to listen to us. Now the government will have to make budgetary provisions. The state home department and finance department will need to divert some funds towards security bills, another home department official said.

Kasab was among the 10 Pakistani militants who attacked Mumbai on Nov. 26, 2008, and unleashed a mayhem in the city that killed 166 people and injured several others.

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