123Pune.com

PUNE: The civic administration has sought permission from the standing committee to allow the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) to book six officials
of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) involved in the Kothrud transfer of development rights (TDR) scam that rocked the PMC two years ago.

According to a proposal tabled by the civic administration, the ACB has recently submitted a report which states that assistant engineer Deepak Bhalchandra Kulkarni, junior engineers Dattatray Bhanudas Tambare, Madhusudan Shrirang Yenkar and Chandrasen Tulshiram Nagtilak, legal advisor Ravindra Nivrutti Thorat and maintenance surveyor Sitaram Chintu Kadhu have been found to have criminal intentions in the scam.

The PMC has already suspended Kulkarni, Tambare, Yenkar and Thorat for thier alleged involvement in the scam.
Quoting the ACB report, the proposal said that the engineers have worked with malafide intentions with the objective of earning illegal monetary gains. “They have tried to destroy original records and replace them with fake records to show that they are real,” the report states.

Following the findings, the PMC has sought permission of the standing committee to book the six accused.
The issue had rocked the city in October 2005 when the PMC had been allegedly duped to the tune of Rs 14 crore by two property owners and their agent, who procured TDR for a plot of land in Kothrud, which had already been acquired and paid for by the PMC.
The PMC had acquired the plot, owned by the accused, to develop a civic amenity in 1979. It had paid a monetary compensation of Rs 21,85,826 to the accused. The accused then submitted fake documents, claiming that they had not received compensation and made an application to the PMC, claiming a TDR of 36,000 sq.m.

Civic officials, who granted the TDR, later realised that they were cheated and lodged a police complaint. However, the local corporators had pointed out that it was the duty of the civic officials to verify the documents before granting the TDR and that there was a possibility that officials were involved too.

An independent inquiry, conducted by then additional commissioner Mohan Adtani, found four of the above-mentioned officers guilty. They were suspended.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pune/TDR_scam_six_PMC_officials_face_...