Mumbai, Nov. 18 -- The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police has filed a second charge sheet in the Rs.65-crore Mithi river desilting scam, naming 49-year-old contractor Shersingh Rathore. The contractor, who owns Maindeep Enterprises, had swindled around Rs.29 crore from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 2021 and 2022 by passing off construction debris as silt removed from the river bed, the 1,300-page charge sheet said. He had also paid Rs.4 crore from this amount to the alleged masterminds of the desilting scam, 50-year-old Ketan Kadam and 49-year-old Jay Joshi, said the charge sheet which quotes 39 witnesses. "When Rathore bagged the contract to remove silt from the Mithi river for 23 months in 2021 and 2022, he did not own a silt pushing machine," a police officer familiar with the case told HT. "Instead of removing silt, he filled trucks with construction debris and uploaded photographs on the BMC's work monitoring software to claim payments." Preliminary investigation by the EOW revealed that in at least 67 instances, Rathore passed off debris as river silt, which allowed him to pocket around Rs.29 crore. He also submitted three allegedly fake memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with land owners to dump the debris. Two of the land owners had never signed any agreements, while the third land owner, Bhaskar Tare, had died in January 2021, three months before the MoU bearing his signature was purportedly signed, the EOW found. EOW sources said Rathore had also signed MoUs with the alleged masterminds of the desilting scam, businessmen Jay Joshi and Ketan Kadam. According to the FIR filed by the EOW, Kadam and Joshi colluded with BMC officials to create a monopoly for their silt pusher manufacturing firm, Maptrop Services, by inserting certain clauses in desilting tenders. The EOW had registered the FIR on May 6, 2025, following a detailed inquiry into the alleged irregularities....