Mumbai: SEEPZ IT advisor accuses top officials of corruption

An IT advisor with the Santacruz Electronics Export Processing Zone SEEPZ 37yearold Binod Agarwal who joined the Special Economic Zone SEZ at Andheri East in 2016 after retiring from the Indian Navy has filed a criminal writ petition in the Bombay High Court alleging that Development Commissioner Baldev Singh terminated him from his post without giving any official intimationAgarwal claims that this step was taken as he was coming in the way of illegalities and wrongdoings Singh and Joint Development Commissioner V P Shukla were involved in However Singh has said Agarwal was not removed instead his contract was not renewed as he was an underperformerGatepass systemSpeaking to midday Agarwal said I resigned from the Navy in May 2016 and joined the SEEPZ as an IT advisor on contract in October 2016 I was in the process of implementing the gatepass Enterprise Resource Planning at SEEPZ which would have eventually made gold smuggling difficult Higher officials including Singh got agitated over this and planned to terminate me When I asked for leave on September 20 2017 Singh asked me to discontinue my services even though my contract was for two years I immediately left the premises Following this Singh even stopped work on the gatepass citing malware in the systemIn November 2017 Agarwal approached the Central Administrative Tribunal CAT to challenge his termination The CAT passed its order on May 2 2018 directing Singh and others to bear Agarwals cost a total of Rs 25000 of initiating appearing and arguing for the case within two weeks The petitioner further claims that Singh in connivance with the officers of MIDC police station had falsely implicated him in a case following which he was arrested on October 23 2018 He spent 65 days behind bars and managed to secure bail by furnishing a bail bond Agarwal said that later the police had added Section 70 of the Information Technology Act in the FIR on Singhs directions to make the charges against him more stringent The fake case was filed against me as I had reported the matter to senior government officials as well Agarwal addedPolice speakSpeaking to midday Navinchandra Reddy zonal deputy commissioner of police said Agarwal is an accused in the case and was behind bars We have already filed a charge sheet against him and the matter is subjudiceHe hacked into the systemSingh said His laptop and mobile were sent to the Kalina forensic lab for tests and the report states he had hacked into the system He is writing letters to everyone alleging we have done injustice to him but the fact is there is clear evidence against him The report has been submitted at the court It also shows Agarwal hatched a conspiracy with others against whom action has been taken and their allotments at SEEPZ have been cancelled These officials had appealed before the Board of Ministry and Commerce for their reinstatement but those have been rejectedHe added The firm that was implementing the gatepass software left They gave us a letter saying they would not be able to implement the system for which we have imposed a penalty of Rs 15 lakh on themAlso ReadRadio Club tussle Govt agency to probe top lawyers corruption charges against Mumbai clubCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates