TMC engineer summoned over RTI delay.

Mumbai Mirror: N. Ganesh: Mumbai: Saturday, October 02, 2026.

The State Information Commission directs police to serve summons after officer fails to provide records on Vartak Nagar redevelopment.

The State Information Commission has summoned a Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) officer to appear before it for an enquiry after he allegedly failed to provide information as directed and did not appear for a subsequent hearing.

State Information Commissioner Shekar Channe of the Konkan division was peeved that executive engineer Sandeep Sawant did not provide the information ordered by the commission on June 15 and also failed to appear before it during the subsequent proceeding.

Channe has directed the Thane police commissioner’s office and the senior police inspector of Vartak Nagar police station to serve the summons on Sawant. The summons has been issued under Section 18(3)(c) of the RTI Act, 2005. Sawant is an executive engineer with the Lokmanya Nagar/Savarkar Nagar ward.

The matter relates to 127 families from Vartak Nagar who claim they were rendered homeless after the redevelopment of buildings where they had lived for several decades. The residents allege that they were deprived of their homes due to the “connivance of TMC and MHADA”.

The RTI appeal arose from an application filed by Salil Rane with the TMC regarding the redevelopment of MHADA buildings 54, 55 and 56 at Vartak Nagar. Rane had sought copies of all communications from 1970 related to the procurement of the buildings from MHADA as service quarters.

The query was based on a claim made by the TMC before the high court that the three buildings had been procured from MHADA as service quarters.When contacted, Sawant said he had not received the summons.

“The reason they are unable to provide the communication regarding the procurement of the three MHADA buildings as service quarters is because it doesn’t exist. TMC is weaving a story that these were service quarters and yet it is not denying that there were residents whose members were not civic employees residing in these buildings,” said Sudhir Parab, one of the residents fighting for their homes.

The Mirror had reported on March 17, that residents of the three buildings were housed there after being uprooted during a road widening project undertaken in the 1970s. The then civic body allotted tenements in the three buildings to project-affected persons (PAPs) as well as civic employees.

However, during the redevelopment process, TMC conveyed to MHADA that the buildings were occupied only by civic staff. MHADA, which owns the land, subsequently gave its approval accordingly.

Under the conditions laid down by MHADA for redevelopment of service quarters, the erstwhile PAPs were allotted rooms which they could neither sell nor rent out.

The High Court, too, in its order, observed that occupants of the MHADA buildings who had approached the court were yet to be rehabilitated.