Mumbai’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has escalated its probe into the alleged Rs 65.5 crore Mithi River silt removal scam, filing a massive 7,000-page supplementary chargesheet in the Esplanade Court on Wednesday. This second document names two arrested accused, Mahesh Purohit and Sunil Upadhyay, alongside testimonies from 39 witnesses.
Investigators allege that Purohit and Upadhyay fabricated Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) using farmers’ names to secure dumping ground permissions. These fake documents were passed off as genuine to claim payments for silt clearance work that never materialized. Both men were apprehended by the EOW in December last year, adding fuel to the ongoing corruption saga plaguing Mumbai’s flood mitigation efforts.
The FIR, registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, paints a grim picture of collusion between Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Storm Water Drainage Department officials, contractors, and middlemen. From 2013 to 2023, this syndicate allegedly created bogus MoUs for dumping sites, enabling the approval of fraudulent payment bills for silt extraction from the Mithi River.
Fake weighing receipts and log sheets further inflated the scam. This latest chargesheet follows a previous 1,300-page filing in November last year against Rathore, owner of M/s Mandeep Enterprises, who was arrested in August. The Mithi River project, meant to dredge silt and prevent flooding, instead became a hotbed of financial irregularities where work existed only on paper.
Initial investigations by Mumbai Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) uncovered the discrepancies, prompting the EOW takeover. Billions were siphoned off through sham invoices, leaving the river as choked as ever. As the court reviews this voluminous evidence, public outrage grows over how taxpayer money vanished into thin air. The probe continues, with more arrests anticipated as layers of deceit unravel.