Held to account, the sarpanch of Manjari Budruk on Thursday, submitted a report to the block development officer (BDO) declaring that all buildings constructed there between 2007 and 2009 were illegal, as there is no record of the gram panchayat having given any permission for construction in its jurisdiction, nor had it accepted any fees for doing so.
The report was submitted after the BDO demanded to know if any stamp or letterhead had been stolen from the gram panchayat. The BDO requisitioned the report pursuant to the arrest of deputy sarpanch Purushottam Dharwadkar (49) and three of his accomplices Pradeep Kodre (40), Kalidas Bhorade (42) and Sharad Lagad (49) last week. In fact eight people have been booked in the case, based on a complaint filed on March 11, 2019, by RTI activist Ravindra Barate of forgery and cheating.
In 2016, a survey conducted by the Pune collector found over 16,000 constructions under Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) to be illegal, which included some in Manjari Budruk. Barate’s RTI endeavours revealed the commencement certificate and building plans in the case of 3,000 construction were all dated January 2, 2009 and signed by Dharawadkar who also ran a realty firm with his wife. This prompted him to file the police complaint.
The then senior police inspector at Hadapsar police station, Sunil Tambe, investigated the matter and wrote to PMRDA to run an inquiry into the matter. Besides the fabricated document issue, it was found that 1,134 of them were built on waste land, which as per a Supreme Court order cannot be deployed for residential or commercial purposes. “Since it is a scam involving a government revenue loss of over Rs 50 lakh, we had to transfer the case to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the crime branch,” assistant police inspector at Hadapsar police station, Dilip Gadhe told Mirror.
As reported earlier, BJP MLA Yogesh Tilekar got involved and also enlisted the then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ s help to regularise these constructions, in the run up to assembly elections.
Pursuant to their arrest, Dharawadkar and his accomplices had moved a bail application before the Cantonment court, which was rejected on Friday based on the sarpanch’s submission. Assistant public prosecutor Amrapalli Kasture, who opposed the application, told Mirror, “The accused have cheated the government and huge construction projects were carried out on the basis of forged permissions.”
Rejecting the bail applications, Judicial Magistrate First Class, Komalsing Rajput observed, “The offence is serious and the investigation is in progress. Releasing the accused on bail may adversely affect the progress of the investigation. The possibility of tampering with evidence and inflicting other adverse effect cannot be ruled out.”
Clearly feeling vindicated by the sarpanch’s report, Barate added, “The local politicians, developers and builders are all involved in the scam and it needs to be investigated by senior EOW officials. I’ve been threatened since I started raising my voice against these people. Even after the arrest made last week, I received WhatsApp message from mobile numbers belonging to the accused with pictures of sharp weapons.”
