Keypoints:
- The civic body on Tuesday demolished five illegal stalls of vegetable vendors at Vartak Nagar in Ville Parle East.
- The one who filed the complaint alleges that not only did the BMC take retaliatory action after getting the officials trapped, but the accused were not arrested either.
On Tuesday, a day after the anticorruption bureau caught three BMC employees accepting a bribe of Rs.250 from a vegetable vendor, the civic body on Tuesday demolished five illegal stalls of such vegetable vendors, including the complainant’s, at Vartak Nagar in Ville Parle East.
Ramesh Gupta, who had filed a complaint with the ACB, alleges that not only did the BMC take retaliatory action after he got the officials trapped, but the accused were not arrested either. Praveen Balgosavi, the ACB investigating officer said that no arrests were made since the amount involved was meagre. However, he said the accused – Vishwas Nadar, Ramakant Sonkamble (a clerk with the enroachment department) and Harshad Warlikar, a security guard – have been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to the FIR, the enroachment department of KEast ward demolished Gupta’s illegal stall on October 29 and took the goods to its godown at MIDC central hall in Andheri. Gupta has alleged that when he went to pay the fine and retrieve the goods, a woman officer asked him to pay Rs.2,000. “When the officer refused to issue the receipt, I realised she was asking for bribe. Hence, I decided to approach the ACB,” said Gupta.
On Monday, ACB officers fitted a secret recorder on Gupta, who then went to get his goods released. Nadar demanded Rs. 250, while Sonkamble accepted the bribe amount. Gupta immediately signalled the ACB team which caught the three. A senior ACB official said that the trio will be arrested soon. K-East ward officer Prashant Sapkal denied Tuesday’s action against the vegetable stalls was a fit for tat.” The godown where the ACB trap took place, does not fall under our ward, but under the enroachment department. Secondly, it was routine action and has nothing to do with the trap,” he said.
