ACB registers FIR but BMC still drags its feet

MUMBAI: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) may have registered a first information report (FIR) against a cartel of contractors and civic officials, who tried to siphon off crores of public money, but the civic body's probe into the attempted fraud is dragging on pending verification.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said it was awaiting scientific confirmation of forged signatures by civic contractors.Of the 32 contractors under the scanner in the Rs 95-crore fraud, signatures of most were found to be forged on letters and claims for work never executed on the ground. As per civic rules, payments are credited directly to the contractor's account by an electronic clearing service after submission of bills either by the proprietor or his authorized signatory. But since there is mechanized system to check signatures, most proprietors make the signatory sign on their behalf. "These signatures are rarely checked by staff," said a civic official.
At least a dozen of those contractors claimed they never signed a letter for reminder of payment or claims, one of which was written to mayor Shraddha Jadhav.
In legal terms, this claim for payments is what has made contractors accountable for the attempted fraud. "But one should first question the practice of a third person claiming payment on behalf of a proprietor. This mismanagement has given these contractors a chance to shrug off responsibility," said Congress legislator Aslam Sheikh. "Keeping this in mind, the corporation must blacklist and take action against the guilty contractors irrespective of the fact that their signatures tally or not," he added.
The ACB on Wednesday, nearly seven months after TOI exposed the cartel, registered the FIR in the case. Besides the contractors, under the ACB scanner, are 11 civic officials.
The first of the two BMC probes into the alleged con job by contractors and civic officials had last year concluded that "an outstanding payment for 3,703 works'' carried out by 32 contractors between 2005 and 2009 of Rs 94.6 crore was bogus and neither tenable nor payable.