Mumbai: The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chief Ajoy Mehta, on the basis of two separate inquiry reports, has ordered the suspension of four officials connected with the Jogeshwari land scam. There will be a detailed departmental inquiry against the remaining 14 officers.
Mehta, in a three-page statement to the civic standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav on Monday, said, “On perusal of the report, it has been found, there have been extreme unexplained and unwarranted delays in processing the file with respect to the acquisition of land at Jogeshwari.”
The four who have been suspended are identified as Ashok Shendge, Executive Engineer, Vijay Kumar Wagh, Assistant Engineer, Ganesh Bapat, Sub Engineer and PV Naik, Deputy Law officer, in the preliminary inquiry report.
The report states, during the inquiry it was found, the deputy law officer gave an opinion on July 5, 2014, regarding the validity of purchase notice. This was processed and put to the then commissioner on February 2, 2015, after a seven-month delay. Similar delays were found in processing the related files. “This kind of delay cannot be labelled as negligence but in fact, it points to a larger mala fide intent to take the outcome in a particular direction.”
The officials who will face departmental inquiry are identified as Bhaskar Choudhari, deputy Chief Engineer(retired), Vijay Patil, Executive Engineer, Sanjay Pandit, Executive Engineer, Arvikar, Assistant Engineer, Ganesh Pawar, Sub-Engineer all from DP department. Besides this, Sanjay Darade, Chief Engineer and three deputy chief engineers – Vivek More, Surendra Chavan, Mahendra Mule, have been found guilty of poor supervision. The officials from the legal department who will face departmental inquiry are Nashir Shaikh, (retired law officer), Jernold Xavier, law officer, Ujwala Deshpande (retired law officer), KN Gaikwad, joint law officer and VS Gharpure, deputy law officer. The report mentions two officers, KN Gaikwad and VS Gharpure were found guilty and minor charges have been levelled against them.
The departmental inquiry of eight officers from DP will be headed by Chief Engineer (Hydraulic) Ashok Tawadiya and Prakash Kadam, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (DMC). Similarly, departmental inquiry will of the law officers will be conducted by Narendra Barde, DMC Zone 2 and Sudhir Naik, DMC.
BMC was unable to acquire around 13,000 square metres of land, worth Rs 500 crore, in Jogeshwari for the past 10 years. The land was reserved for a civic hospital and a recreational ground. Since, the civic body did not acquire the land, the owner of the land seized the opportunity to move the Bombay High Court to claim his rights on the plot and the HC orders were given in his favour. Following this setback, the BMC challenged the orders in Supreme Court. But as the BMC lawyer failed to reach in time for the hearing, they lost the case in the apex court too.
The matter was first raised by former Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam. He held Mehta responsible for the loss of land and alleged his involvement and demanded his resignation. Following this, Mehta was forced to make a statement before the civic standing committee, in which he refuted his involvement, claiming he had been the one who had first red-flagged the issue. Mehta also assured the committee members an inquiry would be conducted, headed by Deputy Municipal Commissioner Nidhi Chaudhari.
On the inquiry report, Nirupam said, “The probe report submitted by BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta is a finely crafted and half-baked attempt to target the smaller fish, thus providing enough time and means for the bigger ones to escape. This is an old tactic opted by the civic body to pass the buck and save the culprits. And in this case, the BMC commissioner is the biggest culprit”.
Surprisingly, the former in-charge of the DP department, Vinod Chithore, has escaped any inquiry. Darade, who succeeded him two years ago, has been found guilty and will face appropriate action in the scam, which began in 2014, when the first purchase order notice for the land was issued.