Desilting scam: BMC issues showcause notices to 4 civic officials

THE BMC issued showcause notices to four officials from the monitoring and registration as well as the legal department on Monday for allegedly misrepresenting the BMC in a court hearing that led to the Bombay High Court ordering a stay on the blacklisting of contractors found to be complicit in the de-silting scam.

After a day-long inquiry, senior officials were convinced that subordinate officials were in connivance with contractors and had deliberately not informed any of their superiors about the court proceedings. A senior official requesting anonymity pointed out that the matter should have been deal with right before the BMC went on leave from December 24-27. “The matter was filed on December 14 and we had 14-15 hours to prepare an argument but no one bothered to inform the seniors. Despite being a high-profile case, a junior engineer and junior advocates attended the hearing. They intentionally did not inform about the hearings or the stay order and waited until the end of December 23 after which the BMC was shut,” said the official. The officials found out about the stay order after the media reported about it.

The official further stated that the civic chief’s orders were misquoted in the court and the advocates did nothing to correct the situation. “The MC’s order had stated that the process of blacklisting be initiated which would include hearings. But the officials sent the contractors a notice of blacklisting instead without consulting anyone,” he said.

While the BMC can only take corrective measures until the next hearing on January 19, the civic administration is happy that the criminal proceedings will continue and the FIR is still in the process of being filed. Apart from the joint law officer Aruna Savla and assistant law officer Vinod Mahadik from the legal department, assistant engineer Vaibhav Borkar and Executive engineer Anil Jadhav from the monitoring and registration department have been issued show cause notices.

arita.sarkar@expressindia.com