Mumbai, Aug 21 (PTI) A 50-year-old contractor has been arrested in connection with the Rs 65-crore Mithi river desilting scam for allegedly creating fake MoUs and receiving Rs 26.92 crore through bogus bills, an official said on Thursday.
One of the MoUs presented by the accused, Shershing Rathod, had the “signature” of a dead person, the official said.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police took Rathod into custody on Wednesday after his role in the alleged irregularities came to the fore.
Rathod, who was nabbed from Borivali in the western suburbs, will be produced before the court later in the day, the official said.
This is the third arrest in the alleged scam. Earlier, EOW had arrested middleman Ketan Kadam and Jai Joshi in connection with the case.
Police said Rathod had obtained a contract from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 2021-22 to remove silt from Mithi.
He created Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the land owners to dispose of the silt. However, the documents were found to be fake. Rathod allegedly even created fake signatures to show a deceased person as a landlord, the official said.
Besides, he signed an MoU with middleman Kadam to lease slit pusher machines and multipurpose amphibious pontoon machines of Matprop company and submitted the document to the BMC to bag the contract.
Rathod also submitted a list of dumpers to the BMC, claiming that the vehicles were used to ferry silt from Mithi. However, he collected debris from various places and transported it, passing off the material as silt from the river, said the official, who probed the case.
Despite not removing the sediment, the accused submitted fake bills and received Rs 29.62 crore from the BMC by fraud, the official said.
Earlier, the agency had also questioned Bollywood actor Dino Morea and his brother over the Mithi desilting matter.
The Mumbai police had in May registered a case against 13 people, including contractors and civic officials, for an alleged Rs 65.54 crore scam in the tenders awarded from 2017-2023 for the desilting of Mithi, which flows through Mumbai and acts as a stormwater drainage channel for the metro city. PTI DC NR
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