MED seeks full list of appointments in urban local bodies
The Statesman | 26 October 2024
The superintending engineer (headquarters) of the Municipal Engineering Directorate (MED), which is under the department of urban development and municipal affairs, has sought details of the appointments of sub-assistant engineers (SAE) at 17 urban local bodies of the state by today in a recent order.
These 17 urban local bodies in the state are, Asansol, Bankura, Purulia, Birbhum, Burdwan, Siliguri, jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, West Midnapore, Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, Hooghly, East Midnapore etc.
On Tuesday, the executive engineers of these urban local bodies have received a notification No. Secy/145/1E-1/2014,Pt.IV, issued by the superintendent engineer of the MED (HQ), Bikash Bhawan in Salt Lake.
On 17 October, the DSP of CBI, anti-corruption branch (ACB) in Kolkata, Malay Das, sent a letter directing the secretary in charge of Municipal Engineering Directorate to produce the documents or articles under Section 91 of CrPc regarding a case lodged in 2023.
There are seven points in the letter given by the DSP of CBI to the secretary of MED seeking detailed information and documents, besides the list of names of appointments since 2015.
A copy of the CBI letter sent by DSP Moloy Das is also attached with the notification by the superintending engineer of the MED.
On 21 April last year, the Calcutta High Court gave a CBI probe in its order to the civic bodies of the state.
This is the first time a letter regarding a CBI probe in the ongoing appointments case has been sent to Asansol Municipal Corporation (AMC), the second largest urban local body in the state after Kolkata.
So far, mayor of AMC Bidhan Upadhyay has remained silent on this issue. Sources claimed that seven persons have been recruited under the sub-assistant engineers (SAE) in Asansol Municipal Corporation since 2015.
Between 2015 to 2020, Jitendra Kumar Tewari, who is now a BJP leader, was the mayor of AMC.