Mumbai: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police, through its Special Investigation Team (SIT), has registered a criminal case against 13 accused—including civic officials, contractors, middlemen, and company representatives—in connection with the ₹65 crore Mithi River desilting scam.
The First Information Report (FIR), filed at Azad Maidan Police Station on Tuesday morning, names three Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) engineers, five contractors, three middlemen, and two company officials for allegedly causing wrongful loss to the civic administration. The contractors named in the case are: Acute Designs, Kailash Construction Company, NA Constructions, Nikhil Construction Company, and JRS Infrastructure.
The FIR lists BMC Assistant Engineer Prashant Ramgude, Deputy Chief Engineer Ganesh Bendre, and Deputy Chief Engineer Tayshettye, along with contractors Deepak Mohan, Kishore Memon, Jay Joshi, Ketan Kadam, and Bhupendra Purohit for criminal conspiracy, cheating, and misappropriation of public funds.
Soon after the FIR was registered, the SIT conducted simultaneous raids at seven locations linked to the BMC officials, contractors, and middlemen.
The investigation revealed that nine forged and bogus Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were submitted by the civic contractors in connivance with BMC engineers to fraudulently obtain contracts. “Some of the signatures on these MoUs belonged to individuals who were deceased long before the agreements were executed. In other cases, real owners denied ever signing the documents submitted by the contractors,” said DCP (EOW) Sangramsingh Nishandar.
He added that more names may be added to the FIR as the probe uncovers further evidence of misappropriation of public funds.
The EOW SIT was constituted in February to investigate alleged irregularities and embezzlement of ₹1,100 crore in the Mithi River desilting and beautification project, covering contracts awarded between 2005 and 2023.
