Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court has started final hearing of PILs regarding the alleged LED lamps scam in Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) exposed by TOI. After hearing both sides at length, a division bench comprising justices Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Murlidhar Giratkar adjourned the hearing till Thursday.
HC had taken suo motu cognisance of TOI reports in this regard, and directed its registry to treat it as PIL, where Amruta Gupta was appointed as amicus curiae. The second was filed by lawyer Abhiyan Barahate praying for directives to the respondents to place all relevant records regarding the scam before HC. He also insisted on conducting quality comparison of LED bulbs installed by NMC with other products in the market through experts.
Earlier, Barahate’s counsel Shashibhushan Wahane strongly contended that original project cost of Rs237 crore can’t be exceeded beyond 10%, but the contracts of about Rs473 crore were awarded to eight contractors. Senior counsel Chandrashekhar Kaptan pleaded for the civic body. On Thursday, senior counsel MG Bhangde will plead on behalf of the contractors.
State Urban Development Department secretary, NMC commissioner Virendra Singh, city mayor Nanda Jichkar, Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) chairman Ashwin Mudgal, and NMC’s Purchasing and Standing Committees chairmen were made respondents in the suo motu PIL. In Barahate’s plea, executive engineer with NMC’s Electricity Department Sanjay Jaiswal, and corporator Sandeep Sahare, were also issued notices.
Quoting the TOI news item based on a RTI filed by Sahare, the petitioner accused the civic body of purchasing inferior products at a cost much higher than market rates. He further demanded stopping payments to the private contractors engaged by the corporation for installing LED lamps till pendency of the petition. He also sought directives to respondents to initiate legal and penal action against concerned officials and contractors, and recover entire amount swindled by them.
