Party’s city secretary wants action against MMRDA and various other stakeholders, based on the damning CAG report on the building of the Monorail
Even as the demand for probing the poor quality of construction of the Monorail’s first phase as pointed out by the CAG (Comptroller & Auditor General) in its audit is gaining momentum, a city BJP functionary has moved a Metropolitan Magistrate’s court, requesting to direct the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) police to investigate the alleged fraud and register an FIR against various officials of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), architects, contractors, vendors and project management consultants.
On Monday, city BJP secretary Vivekanand Gupta filed a complaint before Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate S R Pahade of the 9th Court under Section 156 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code. He wants the police to file an FIR against all accused, known and unknown, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act.
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Gupta has cited the CAG findings as the basis of his demand. The court will hear the case on June 3. As per Gupta’s application, the main accused in the case are director (Monorail) MMRDA, chief engineer/s, chief transport and communication officer, Louis Berger Group Inc, Team One Architect (India), contractors, project consultants and vendors.
Gupta has said that certain dishonest actions, procedures and measures were adopted by all the accused to the detriment of the public at large. He said it is matter of investigation as to who was responsible (at the relevant time) when the Mumbai Monorail project was conceived. “The role played by each person will have to be looked into and investigated,” Gupta told mid-day, after filing the application.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who took over the state’s reigns nine months after the Monorail’s Phase-I was thrown open, had told mediapersons on Sunday that the Public Accounts Committee of the state legislator would probe the matter as part of Parliamentary proceedings.
He said the guilty would not be spared, and clarified that the probe would not be vindictive in nature (because the erstwhile Congress-NCP government had planned and executed the project). BJP’s Mumbai MP Kirit Somaiya had also written a letter to the CM seeking investigations into the alleged corruption. Fadnavis, like his predecessors, heads the MMRDA.
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