Author: Chitrangada Choudhury
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: February 2, 2007
Introduction: Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 45 lakh, payoffs
coincide with file's journey in government, say investigators
The home Department has not responded to a
three-month-old police request to file charges of corruption against public
servants who investigators said received payoffs totalling more than Rs 1
crore for giving per missions to buildings that replaced an Oshiwara slum.
Among the officials are Debashish Chakrabarti,
CEO of the agency tasked with clearing Mumbai's sprawling shanty towns, the
Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), and former Mumbai collector S.S. Zende.
Chakrabarti and Zende, however, deny receiving
any payoffs.
Chakrabarti heads Mumbai's faltering 16-year
effort to convert slums into housing towers and was investigated by the Anti-Corruption
Bureau (ACB) following city-wide raids on government departments, and offices
and homes of officials and builders on September 14, 2006.
A crucial piece of evidence, said ACB officers,
is a diary unearthed during a 17-hour search of a Versova bungalow belonging
to former municipal officer Jayant Joshi (60), who now calls himself a redevelopment
consultant. He was arrested as police tried to untangle payoffs to officials
who endorse lists of fake slum-dwellers to allow construction.
The diary is in Joshi's handwriting and lists
payments totalling more than Rs 1 crore to officials over 12 months for an
Oshiwara slum-redevelopment project by Citimake Developers. joshi's son runs
the company, said a highly placed ACB official, requesting anonymity because
he is not authorised to talk to the media.
"I don't know of any diary," deputy
chief minister R.R. Patil told HT, when asked why his government was refusing
permission to prosecute officials and refusing information sought by investigators
from the SRA.
Asked about the ACB request made on November
21, 2006, to file charges against the officials named in Joshi's diary, Patil
said: "We will send that letter to the housing department too."
Asked about the diary, Chief Minister Vilasrao
Deshmukh, head of the housing department and the SRA, told HT: "The committee
(composed of one man, retired bureaucrat B.K. Agarwal) will look into all
this."
There are 30 payments listed in the diary
to officials from the SRA, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Collector's
office, a councillor, court officials and the police, the ACB official said.
The payments range from Rs 5,000 to local police - to Rs 45 lakh paid to SRA
chief Chakrabarti, the official said.
"I don't know Joshi or anything about
this diary or (about) an ACB request for an inquiry against me," said
Chakrabarti. "I deny the charge completely" Two former CEOs of the
SRA are also named in corruption cases filed by the ACB.
ACB investigators said that they found the
dates of the payments matched the progress of the project's file through departments.
Joshi told police interrogators how payments smoothed the way to clearing
slum-rehousing projects in government departments, in particular the SRA.
The ACB intends to produce the recording in
the High Court, which is now hearing the case, the ACB official said. On Wednesday,
the court also starting hearing two public interest litigations on corruption
in the SRA.
The September raids were conducted after a
special court asked the police to investigate a slum-redevelopment project
in Borivli's Sukurwadi area. As the BMC's Senior Colony Officer till 2004,
Joshi had verified Sukurwadi's tenant lists, which investigations revealed
had fake names.
Now out on bail after six weeks in jail, Joshi
said: "There is no concrete case against me. My lawyer says it will take
10 years even before authorities can get a date for the court hearing."
Asked about the diary found in his house,
he said: "Yes, the ACB took a diary, but I do not know what their case
about it is."
The ACB's raids last September in the course
of investigating the Sukurwadi case triggered a flood of complaints - now
189 against the SRA. It is the only criminal investigation into an SRA project.
The ACB's request for special investigators
was turned down by the government last month, and its request for information
from the SRA was refused by the housing department on November 25, 2006.
The letter from the housing department said:
"The government has decided there is no need to give information about
slum-redevelopment cases to the ACB." The housing department was, however,
legally bound to give information in three other cases now being heard in
the ACB's special court.
In January, in response to an ACB request
for a special prosecutor to handle SRA cases, the Law and Judiciary Department
- also under Deshmukh - wrote: "Who will bear the cost of this?"
The same month, the government appointed a
one-man administrative committee, headed by retired bureaucrat Bal Kumar Agarwal,
instead of the criminal investigation requested by the ACB. "I am not
protecting any officials," Deshmukh told Hindustan Times.
chitrangada.choudhury@hindustantimes.com
