The inquiry, which was instituted by Additional Municipal Commissioner V Ramani following a report carried by Express Newsline, indicted the three Assessment and Collection Department officers for currying favours to the shop owners. While the inquiry report had proposed suspension of two of them, it recommended that the retirement benefits of the third be withheld. However, following intervention of a senior Mayor-in-Council member, the vigilance report was overruled. The same member, it is reliably learnt, is now lobbying to get necessary clearances from the health department for several illegal restaurants among the 27 shops. In fact, following recommendations of the samecorporator, the health department had recently issued licences to these restaurant owners. The licences, however, were later revoked by the ward officer upon instructions from Ramani. Ramani confirmed that the vigilance inquiry was complete but refused to explain why no disciplinary action was taken against the corrupt officers.

The three officers had followed an interesting modus-operandi while regularising the shops that occupy a better part of R C Marg. Though the shops were constructed in 1984, the owners, in connivance with the BMC officers, had manipulated records to show their existence prior to 1962. The BMC tax registers were also tampered to show that property tax was being recovered from the shop owners since early 1960s. However, a census of commercial shops and establishments carried out by the state government on August 14, 1976 did not have any mention of the said shops.

They officers also gave the numbers of several rooms at Adarsh Nagar slums, located nearby, to these shops. They thenmerely changed the names of the owners of the rooms with those of the shop owners. The matter came to light when several such residents of Adarsh Nagar complained to the M west ward officer that they had stopped receiving property tax bills.