MUMBAI: Three civic legal department officials, including the head of department, on Thursday received
show-cause notices from the committee inquiring into the
BMC having lost the case for acquisition of a 14,000 sq m plot in Jogeshwari worth Rs 500 crore that was reserved for a recreational ground and a hospital in the
Supreme Court.
According to sources, On Thursday, the BMC-appointed inquiry panel was in the process of sending out show-cause notices to officials from the Development Plan (DP) department too. “The show-cause notices have been sent so that the officials can put forth their responses before the committee submits its report in eight days,” said a civic official.
On July 27, BMC chief
Ajoy Mehta had ordered an inquiry against the legal department after the SC dismissed BMC’s appeal for acquisition of the plot. “The case has been handled in a manner that it is detrimental to the interests of BMC...The legal department working in the light of this case needs to be inquired into,” Mehta had said.
During Wednesday’s standing committee meeting, corporators alleged the involvement of DP officials and Mehta promised to probe their role too. Corporators had questioned the absence of BMC’s counsel in the SC. They alleged that the BMC had two counsels—Ranjit Kumar and Abhishek Manu Singhvi—but when the matter was called the first time, Singhvi was held up in another case and it was kept back. The next time, he could not make it, so the BMC requested Kumar to argue the same. This is the same case where Mehta’s remarks on a file were altered by two unidentified men. TOI had reported about this in on May 26.
BMC building
