96 BMC staffers with criminal, corruption cases reinstated: RTI

BMC reinstated 96 employees suspended on corruption charges, with 19 facing criminal cases. Activist claims this undermines anti-corruption efforts.

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in a suspension review meeting held on March 27, reinstated 96 employees into their ranks who were suspended on criminal and corruption charges, data from the RTI documents revealed. 19 of them have criminal cases pending against them, whereas the other 77 have been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), in a suspension review meeting held on March 27, reinstated 96 employees. Pratik Chorge/HT Photo

As per the RTI documents received by activist Jeetendra Ghadge, the BMC has held five suspension review meetings since 2020; in November 2020, August, September, December of 2023 and March 2024. In the last one, held this year, a week after Bhushan Gagrani was appointed as the municipal commissioner, the latest tranche of 96 suspended employees were reinstated.

Of the 77 employees accused of corruption, 28 were appointed to positions in the city’s engineering department, 13 were given chief engineer posts in solid waste management department, nine were under the licensing superintendent, and five in the health department.

Among the rest, a few were posted in different ward offices, one in Cooper Hospital, one in Sion Hospital, one in the tax assessor’s office, one in the fire brigade, one in the water department, one in the garden department and another in the markets department.

Of the officers accused in criminal cases, twelve were reinstated in the solid waste management department and two in the personnel department. The others have been given posts in the engineering department, water department, Sewri Tuberculosis hospital, KEM hospital and one in the security office.

None of the accused have been convicted in the cases and are currently undergoing trial.

“The municipal commissioner makes these decisions in the review meetings held from time to time, based on the individual case status. These are officers who have been suspended for some years, but their case is still pending or ongoing, so they are given a role in a non-executive position, where they have little direct connection with the public,” said an official from the BMC’s enquiry department. “If an official is convicted, they are immediately dismissed.”

Ghadge says that there has been little action taken over the years to curb corruption within the civic body hierarchy. “The BMC is acting not in the public interest, but in the interest of the corrupt and powerful. Despite many of its officials facing corruption charges, no steps have been taken by any BMC commissioner to clean up the system. Reinstating these officials just before elections raises eyebrows, especially since they were part of election duty,” said Ghadge.

Ghadge further noted that the BMC had not shared the minutes of the review meeting or the names of the reinstated employees, due to other personal information and status of their criminal and court cases also present in the documents, but he claimed was shared by previous administrations.

Ghadge also claimed the BMC had not given persecution sanctions to the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) to investigate some of the officers accused of corruption. When contacted Municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said he would look into the matter.