Updated On: 23 August, 2023 07:08 AM IST | Mumbai | Diwakar Sharma
After mid-day reported house-of-cards scam continues unabated, experts train gun on Vasai-Virar civic officials, while they in turn plead innocence and claim they are working round the clock

The illegal under-construction buildings in VVCMC. Pics/Hanif Patel
Even as mid-day continues to blow the lid off the multi-crore house-of-cards scam, Vasai Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) officials have been coming under increasing scrutiny. A number of builders, land owners and members of the chawl mafia have been booked at various police stations, but experts believe that the FIRs, filed under sections of the IPC and Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act, are an eyewash as civic officials have not followed proper procedures.

I am wondering why the municipal corporation is taking no proper action against the bogus builders who are mushrooming in the jurisdiction of VVCMC. Civic officials are registering First Information Reports (FIRs) against bogus builders and their gang members only because cops have handed them a bunch of files which they confiscated by Virar police after apprehending [alleged mastermind Prashant] Patil and his gang,” said advocate Rahul Singh, who is one among the whistleblowers who have been highlighting the illegal encroachment in Vasai taluka for years.