A sessions court last week rejected the bail application of a chief engineer of the vigilance department who was arrested last year for failing to perform his duty and giving incorrect certification o
A sessions court last week rejected the bail application of a chief engineer of the vigilance department who was arrested last year for failing to perform his duty and giving incorrect certification of work, because of which contractors claimed the full amount for their work despite it being of poor quality.
This is the same case in which the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner had ordered an inquiry into the poor work done on 34 roads. Later, the contractors concerned were blacklisted and a public interest litigation was also filed after the BMC awarded more contracts to the blacklisted contractors and the Bombay high court cancelled some of the controversial contracts.
The prosecution’s case is that the contracts for the construction and maintenance of the 34 roads in Mumbai and the suburbs were given to these contractors, but there were complaints of irregularities with regard to the work concerned. Therefore, a committee comprising Vasant Prabhu of BMC Zone III and Shitla Kori, chief engineer (vigilance), was formed.
The committee had inspected the work on the 34 roads and had given its report to the municipal commissioner. According to the report, the cost of the said work amounted to approximately Rs 352.16 crore and there were a total of six contractors to whom the contracts were given. The committee, in its report, had said that the quality of the work was satisfactory only to the extent of 20 per cent. Despite this, the vigilance department issued certificates allowing the contractors to claim the full amount. Following this, Uday Murudkar, chief engineer (vigilance), the head of this department, was suspended in September 2015 and was later arrested.
The applicant’s lawyer claimed that the work for which he was arrested was supposed to be done by a sub-engineer, assistant engineer, executive engineer or deputy engineer and, as a chief engineer of the vigilance department, Murudkar was only supposed to visit the sites randomly and check the quality of the roads.
