Apart from Phansalkar, Economic Offences Wing (EOW) joint commissioner of police Nishit Mishra and other senior police officers of the EOW will be part of the SIT.
CM Shinde has asked SIT to investigate the CAG’s findings and then register an FIR and take action.
The SIT investigation and subsequent FIR will be a setback for the Shiv Sena (UBT) which ruled the BMC, during the period of the CAG’s audit.
In October 2022 CM Shinde asked CAG to conduct a probe into projects worth Rs 12,000 crore that were undertaken by the BMC.
The inquiry period was from November 28, 2019 to February 28, 2022.
CM Shinde has ordered the SIT on a letter demanding the same by BJP MLA Ameet Satam.
Earlier this month, Satam demanded an FIR and an SIT probe into the Rs 12,000-crore scam in the BMC which was highlighted in the CAG report.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been seeking the probe for the past three months alleging the scam in 76 works of nine BMC departments.
Satam had written to CM Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
‘Probe role of earlier regime’
“The role of the earlier ruling party leader and his family needs to be investigated as they had influenced the BMC chief’s decision to commit the scam. The CAG has observed that BMC gave 20 works worth Rs 214.5 crore without tenders and rewarded works worth Rs 4,756 crore to 64 contractors without agreement,” Satam had said in his letter.
“CM Shinde has approved the formation of a SIT led by the Mumbai police commissioner regarding the irregularities in various departments of the BMC. The CAG has pointed out in a special audit report that there have been irregularities of Rs 12,000 crore. In this regard, Andheri (West) MLA Ameet Satam had given a letter to CM Shinde about setting up an SIT to investigate the embezzlement and registering a case against the concerned,” a statement from the CMO said on Monday.
Sena (UBT) receives setback
Political observers said that the SIT and the ensuing FIR will be a setback for the Sena (UBT) ahead of the BMC polls which could be held in October this year, as the CAG had probed works during their rule in the BMC.
Apart from exposing irregularities in various projects and tenders for roads, bridges and favouring developers in land acquisition, and manipulation in its IT department, the CAG had passed strictures against the fundamental working of the BMC.
The report goes beyond citing instances of violation of norms and points to a larger malaise in the way Asia’s richest municipal corporation functions.
Commenting on the overall functioning of the BMC, the CAG in its report stated that there is high risk associated with weak internal control mechanisms of the civic body.
The CAG stated that there were major lapses pointing to the scant respect for established procedures and weak internal controls in BMC, leading to lack of transparency and probity in execution of works taken up at significant costs.
There was lack of wide publicity of addenda and corrigenda to tenders issued and award of works without issuing tenders apart from non-execution of agreement with contractors.
Legal notice
Interestingly, the BMC had sent a legal notice to the CAG pointing out that CAG cannot audit or probe any spending done during Covid-19 under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and Disaster Management (DM) Act, 2005.
The BMC’s contention has already taken the steam out of the CAG probe into BMC spending since out of the Rs 12,000 crore spending CAG is probing, over Rs 3,500 crore is related to Covid-19.
The state government has referred the BMC’s notice to Advocate General (AG) Birendra Saraf but it is yet to take a call on whether the CAG can probe Covid-19 spending or not.
