MUMBAI: The BMC has revoked the sacking order against two engineers indicted in the 2017 Kamala Mills fire tragedy that had left 14 dead and reinstated them recently, albeit after demotion.
Assistant engineer M G Shelar and junior engineer Dharmaraj Shinde had been found guilty in the BMC's full-fledged departmental inquiry of criminal negligence, dereliction of duty, connivance with mala fide intention and failure to take action. Then municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta had ordered them to be dismissed from municipal service.
Now, Shelar has been reinstated as a sub engineer, down from assistant engineer, and Shinde is back after being brought down by four stages in basic pay. The decision was taken by a new committee of two additional municipal commissioners, P Velrasu (projects) and Sanjeev Kumar (city), formed in 2019.
BJP claimed that this was a cash-for-posting scam and threatened to go to court against the illegal decision.
Both the engineers, along with other officials, were suspended the day after a major fire broke out at 1Above and Mojo's Bistro rooftop restaurants in December 2017 in Lower Parel's Kamala Mills compound.
The original BMC probe report made by then additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal said there was serious negligence and connivance on the part of the officials. Mehta had approved the report and ordered that Shelar and Shinde be sacked.
"This reversal order is illegal and is nothing but a cash-for-posting scam. How can a panel of two additional municipal commissioners revoke orders of a municipal commissioner? We are told the engineers paid Rs 50 lakh each. Instead of dismissing the two culprits responsible for the loss of 14 lives, BMC has given them a red carpet back-door entry. The revocation order must be stayed, otherwise we will take legal recourse," said BJP leader Vinod Mishra. He has written to municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal, demanding the revocation order be stayed.
When contacted, Velrasu said the final sacking order had not been issued to the engineers till 2019. "The proposed termination was approved but (they had) not been given final orders as they wanted a personal hearing. For the hearing, a committee consisting of AMC (city) and AMC (projects) was constituted by the then municipal commissioner in 2019," said Velrasu, adding that the two have been handed "major" punishments.
