IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION P.I.L NO. 33 OF 2005 Suresh Shankar Choudhari .. Petitioner V/s The District Collector, Pune and Ors. .. Respondents Mr.Girish Godbole for Petitioner Mr.S.R.Nargolkar,AGP for Respondent nos. 1 and 2 Mr.Satish Phatak i/b Mrs Vanita V. Bakre-Shastry for Respondent no.3 Mr.Avinash K. Jalisatgi and Amol B. Desai for Respondent no.4 CORAM : SHRI J.N.PATEL & SHRI K.K.TATED, JJ. DATE : 13th August 2008. P.C.: 1. All the pleadings in the matter are completed. Therefore, this Court is disposing of this petition at the stage of admission itself. 2. The Petitioner who is a former President of Talegaon Dabhade Municipal Council has filed this petition in public interest and in the interest of Talegaon Dabhade Municipal Council. It is the case of the Petitioner that the Respondent no.3 has incurred expenditure in renovation of the office of the President of Municipal Council without following proper procedure and thereby huge amount of money have been spent without any justification and therefore this Court should direct the : 2 : Respondent no.1 to forthwith proceed with enquiry which was initiated by the Respondent no.1 in the year 2002 in respect of irregularities committed by Respondent no.1 within a stipulated period of six months and fix the individual liability against the persons found responsible for loss to Talegaon Dabhade Municipal Council and the said amounts should be recovered from the individuals found to be responsible by initiating proceedings against them. 3. In the affidavit in reply filed on behalf of the Respondent it has been specifically stated that enquiry has been conducted in the matter and while conducting the enquiry the audit report is taken into consideration and the Collector did not find any illegality/irregularity to suggest any punitive action against any officer of Municipal council. 4. The learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner drew our attention to the report of the auditor and particularly the deficiencies pointed out in the audit report which has been annexed to his affidavit in rejoinder. It is submitted that Collector without making proper enquiry had given a clean chit to the then Chief Officer of Talegaon Dabhade Municipal Council. : 3 : Therefore, an enquiry is an eye wash, which report has been accepted by the State Government without any application of mind. 5. We have gone through the auditor’s report and found that irregularities pointed out by the Auditor in the audit report do not indicate that there has been grave violation of procedure in obtaining sanction for renovation of the Chamber of the President of Municipal Council and Chief Officer has violated proper procedure in not inviting tenders for the same. The Audit report only points out to certain deficiency like the work was not completed by the contractor but report does not quantify the loss suffered by the Municipal Council in the matter. 6. We, therefore, dispose of this petition with directions to the Respondent State to ascertain the valuation of the incomplete work which is pointed out in the auditor’s report and after making necessary enquiry to get the work completed from the contractor concerned or recover money from the contractor/Chief Officer whosoever is found responsible and we expect that this exercise will be completed within six weeks from the date of receipt of our order. Petitioner to communicate this order to Principal Secretary, Urban Development, : 4 : Government of Maharashtra, Mantralaya, Mumbai. 7. The sum of Rs.1 lac deposited by the Petitioner be refunded to him. ( J.N.Patel,J.) ( K.K.Tated,J.)