The Azad Maidan police on Thursday arrested two senior civic officials, Ashok Pawar (chief engineer, building and maintenance) and Uday Murudkar (chief engineer, vigilance), for their complicity in the road repairs scam. Both were remanded in police custody by the Esplanade court till July 11 after the police opposed their bail plea on the ground that they could tamper with evidence related to the case.
The arrests come a day after Maharasthra Lokayukta M.L. Tahiliyani directed the police to book civic officials in the case under the Prevention of Corruption Act, as the scam could not have been perpetrated by the six road contractors without their connivance. Trade union activists representing civic employees staged a dharna in support of their arrested colleagues.
RTI activist Anil Galgali, who had sought an investigation in the wake of fresh contracts being handed over to six tainted contractors by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation 9BMC), had approached the Lokayukta after the corporation had given fresh contracts despite an internal investigation indicating evidence of shoddy work and bogus encashments by the contractors.
The investigation had revealed large-scale corruption and connivance between the BMC, contractors and two private auditing agencies appointed for the real-time monitoring of the road repairs and construction contracts.
In a related development, the standing committee meeting of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) witnessed pandemonium on Thursday evening, with Congress group leader Pravin Chheda leading the Opposition councillors in a walkout, after failing to get a categorical reply on the blacklisting of the six contractors.
BMC chief Ajoy Mehta, who was present in the House, stated, “When the irregularities of the road contracts came to our notice, 34 roads were surveyed and subsequently, the first information report was lodged against those involved for ‘criminal intention’ and cheating. The blacklisting process was initiated and show-cause notices were issued to the road contractors after the same was vetted by experts so that no scope would be available for the firms to escape. As far as the complicity of BMC officials is concerned, an internal probe found two officials liable to be prosecuted in the case.”
The writer is a freelance journalist
