Mumbai: Suspended IPS officer Quaiser Khalid has told the SIT probing the Ghatkopar hoarding crash that his successor and incumbent GRP commissioner Ravindra Shisve didn't act on complaints about the huge size of the illegal billboard and never checked its structural stability.
Khalid, who was GRP Commissioner when the hoarding crashed on a petrol pump killing 17 persons in May, stated that these complaints were raised before Shisve through office notes.
Khalid was suspended for alleged administrative lapses and irregularities in sanctioning the hoarding on his own without approval from the Director General of Police's office.
His statement is part of a chargesheet submitted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Mumbai crime branch in the magistrate court last week.
Khalid told SIT officials that he had approved a maximum hoarding size of up to 200 square feet. This decision was based on the safety conditions required for other hoardings on the site, considering the local soil and climatic conditions, according to his statement.
Khalid also considered the proximity of a petrol pump to the hoarding and imposed additional conditions prescribed by BPCL in their tender allotment order on Ego Media Private Limited, the operator for the hoarding.
On December 19, 2022, Ego Media applied for revised rentals, proposing an increase in the board size to 33,600 square feet. However, Khalid, who was under a transfer order and considered it a policy matter, refused to take any decision on the note and asked the office to put the matter before the incoming GRP Commissioner, Shisve, for orders.
Meanwhile, BPCL objected to the scale of digging for the hoarding by Ego Media Ltd. on the plot allocated for the petrol pump, stating it violated Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO) license conditions. BPCL requested the stoppage of work and the restoration of the site to its original condition by filling the dug-up portion, according to Khalid's statement.
It was decided that BPCL's objection was meaningless as the land belonged to GRP, Mumbai. Consequently, the construction of the hoarding continued unabated with the tacit support of Shisve and Ego Media, resulting in a giant hoarding of 33,800 square feet, Khalid stated.
After the hoarding was erected, several political, social, and non-governmental organisations raised objections regarding its construction, citing the collapse of another hoarding in Pune, which resulted in the death of five people, and fearing a similar incident in Ghatkopar, according to Khalid.
"Shisve didn't take any action on these complaints. He neither got the structural stability of the hoarding checked nor the points raised in those complaints. All these complaints have been put up before him through office notes on which he has refused to pass on any orders, thereby clearly supporting Ego Media in the construction and running of the illegal hoarding," Khalid stated.