The Maharashtra government on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court that it would register an FIR within a week against Solutions Advertising, a firm accused of fraud and causing a loss of crores to the Thane Municipal Corporation.
Chief Public prosecutor Deepak Thakare for the state, told a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Girish Kulkarni that the state would be filing an FIR against the firm within a week.
The firm had bagged the contract of around 400 Thane Municipal Transport (TMT) bus shelters in return for a payment earned through advertising rights. However, activist Praveen Wategaonkar claimed that the firm committed fraud by creating a 'forged' consortium to bag the contract. He said that the firm was ineligible to get the contract as its annual turnover is less than Rs 10 crore.
Wategaonkar claimed that the TMC erred in awarding the contract to this firm as there was no provision of forming any consortium with other entities, in its tenders.
Further, Wategaonkar has alleged that the firm paid only Rs 8 crore to the TMC in 2018 as against the demand of Rs 27.27 crores by the civic body.
