The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday refused to take action against two civic officials,involved in granting illegal permission to various constructions on the Sara-Sahara shopping centre allegedly owned by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Reason: the standing committee felt the civic administration was unnecessarily strict with these officials as compared to other guilty ones. The committee was to take a decision on retired deputy chief engineer D S Kurmi and executive engineer H P Shah who had serious charges leveled against them. The inquiry report submitted by BMC had recommended a 25 per cent reduction in pension for Kurmi who had five charges leveled against him and a demotion to the post of assistant engineer for Shah. However,the standing committee instead of giving its approval to the inquiry findings has given the proposal back to municipal commissioner for further reconsideration. We think that the punishment meted out to the two officials is very harsh as compared to the other civic officials who were also found guilty, said standing committee Chairman,Ravindra Waikar. Initial investigations by BMC in 2003 had revealed that Kurmi and Shah along with N R Rajbhar of the Building Proposals Department had played a major role in granting permission for carrying out repairs on the controversial project. Also,the conduct of the two officials permitting the unauthorised and illegal construction was found to be highly suspicious. The investigations also led to a preliminary inquiry committee being set up,which revealed that nine other engineers and officers of the BMCVN Deshpande (assistant engineer),SV Bhat (senior engineer),VD Samant (senior engineer),KV Achrekar (assistant commissioner),AP Pawar (assistant engineer),SM Salvekar (assistant engineer),PS Patil (senior engineer) and MB Halikar (joint engineerwere involved in the scam. Following the committee report,eight employees were suspended and four officials Shah,Achrekar,Rajbhar and Salve were arrested under MCOCA. However,a police officer investigating the case made a statement at the Mumbai court on April 12,2007 claiming that Vale,who actually cleared the controversial construction,was given protection by Chhagan Bhujbal,the then home minister.
