Wrongful loss of public money of BMC to which common Mumbaikars give tax: Court

Indian Express

3 days ago

IN THE detailed order rejecting anticipatory bail to an accused in the Mithi river desilting scam case, a Mumbai court said that wrongful loss of public money is caused to the civic body, to which the common Mumbaikar gives tax every year.
While rejecting the pre-arrest bail plea of BMC Engineer Prashant Ramugade, the court said that as an officer in an important post, it is his duty to safeguard public interest, but he had 'failed to do so'.
The court last week rejected the pre-arrest pleas of Ramugade and businessman Bhupendra Rajpurohit, a contractor.
The Mumbai Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) opposed Rajpurohit's plea alleging that he had submitted forged documents to the BMC without actually desilting and transporting silt from the riverside to the dumping sites, causing wrongful loss to the BMC.
'…material prima facie show that the applicant is one of the conspirators along with other co-accused, and he successfully got tenders every year since 2018 in the name of either of his companies or those run through his relatives,' the court order said.
It added that fake photographs were uploaded and fake logsheets maintained to show that the vehicles were making trips to collect silt from the river.
'There is wrongful loss of public money of the public body, to which the common Mumbaikar gives tax every year,' additional sessions judge N G Shukla said in the order on June 27.
In the case of Ramugade, the court referred to statements of witnesses showing that he was designated to monitor the silting activities and the progress in work. The police suspect that wrongful losses of more than Rs 65 crore were caused to the BMC. 'Being officer on an important post, it was duty of the applicant (Ramugade) to safeguard the public interest, but he failed to do so,' the court said.