Officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday arrested a member of the state high-rise committee for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 1 crore from a builder. According to ACB sources, the complainant wanted to build a high-rise building in Matunga and approached the committee. The committee is a state government body and comprises officials from various departments.
Every builder who wishes to construct a building 70 metres tall or higher has to first obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the committee. In this regard, the builder met the committee in April this year. After a team from the committee visited the construction site, Shailesh Mahimtura, a committee member, demanded Rs one crore in return for passing the project.
The builder then appr-oached the ACB. Acting on the ACB’s instructions, the builder then contacted Mahimtura, and told him that he was ready to pay a first installment of Rs 15 lakhs. “Mahimtura is also an architect by profession and owns an office in central Mumbai, where he called the complainant with the money. At the place of exchange, a middleman accepted the money and was arrested by our officers who had laid a trap. Mahimtura too was subsequently arrested,” said Mr Niket Kaushik, additional commissioner of police, ACB.
Mahimtura has been a celebrated structural engineer and consultant, and has also written several columns related to engineering in newspapers. He has won superior honours for the Model United Nations Debates at the University of Wisconsin in 1977 and was also awarded the first prize by the American Society of Civil Engineers for his paper on “The ethics of maintaining continued competence”. He has also been a member of several prestigious architectural organisations.