ED summons MBMC chief to record statement in land rules violation case

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned the commissioner of the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC), Dilip Dhole, to record his statement as part of its money-laundering investigation related to an alleged scam related to builders in Thane.

The agency had initiated its probe after the Thane police detected the alleged scam in November 2016 in which several builders, in violation of the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation (ULCR) Act, avoided surrendering excess land to the government through bribery and using fake documents. Dhole has been called to seek information and clarification related to the agency’s probe into the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation (ULCR) Act case, agency sources said.

Dhole took charge as MBMC chief in March 2021. A year before that, he had joined the civic body as an additional municipal commissioner. In November 2016, the Thane police had claimed to have unearthed a scam in the Urban Land Ceiling department of the District Collectorate and arrested a builder from Mira-Bhayander. The police had also booked an architect and a few then government officials from the ULC section of the Collectorate and the civic corporation to examine their alleged involvement in the fraud.

The accused builder, who was meant to surrender his excess land holding to the government under the ULC Act or get an exemption from the state authorities under section 20 of the Act, had allegedly wrongly impressed upon the people and the authorities that he had the exemption to carry out construction on a plot in Mira Bhayander.

The builder was accused of also creating dubious documents related to permissions, orders, making use of stamps and signatures in connivance with a few government officers. It was alleged that the fraud had caused a loss of around ₹11.17 crore to the state exchequer.

It was alleged that all the accused persons connived to cook up records to evade the provision under the Act which required the surrender of 5% of land to the government for the economically weaker section while undertaking construction on any ULC land plot. The land under the scanner of the police was worth around 23,340 square metres.

In June 2021, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was constituted to probe allegations of corruption against Thane police during their probe into the ULC case, had nabbed three persons, including a former town planner of Mira-Bhayander and an architect.

Speaking to this newspaper, Dhole said, “I am ill. I will collect details and respond. I am under medication.”

Dhole was private secretary to Eknath Shinde when the latter was a minister in the earlier Devendra Fadnavis government. He was of deputy commissioner rank, equivalent to deputy collectors of the revenue department.