Mumbai, May 23 -- An additional chief judicial magistrate court on Thursday rejected the bail pleas of two intermediaries arrested in the Mithi river desilting scam. The detailed court order hadn't been uploaded online at the time of going to press, so it isn't clear why the bail pleas were rejected. According to the police, the two arrested accused, Ketan Kadam and Jay Joshi, charged the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) an inflated amount to rent silt pusher machines and dredging equipment supplied by a Kochi-based firm, Matprop Technical Services Pvt Ltd. The police claimed this was done in connivance with Matprop executives and officials from the BMC's storm water drains department (SWD). Kadam, 50, is the director of Woder India LLP, a Mumbai-based company that provides desilting services, while Jayesh Joshi, 49, is associated with Virgo Specialties Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based industrial product manufacturer. Kadam and Joshi were among 13 people booked by the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police earlier this month in connection with the alleged fraud. The accused include three BMC officials, three intermediaries, five private contractors, and two private company executives. The fraud, according to the police, involves alleged financial irregularities, inflated tenders, and corrupt practices linked to desilting work for the Mithi River, which allegedly led to a loss of Rs.65.54 crore for the BMC. Joshi denied the charges in court. His lawyers, Dr Yusuf Iqbal and advocate Zain Shroff from YNA Legal LLP, argued that he was an independent investor and infrastructure equipment provider who legally imported and owned the machines. These machines were leased to various contractors according to private agreements without any direct payment or contractual engagement with the BMC, they claimed. "The machines were not leased to the BMC. There is no financial gain or wrongful benefit to Joshi from BMC or anybody else. As per the allegations, the actual tender beneficiaries-the contractors-and the officials who are allegedly responsible for the tender irregularities remain untouched and were not even investigated. Our client, a third-party private vendor who supplied machines on rent, is being made a scapegoat and dragged into this alleged scam when he is not even remotely associated with the BMC," Joshi's lawyers told the court. According to the EOW, the BMC officials involved in the fraud floated tenders for equipment with specifications that effectively gave a monopoly to Matprop, whose director, Dipak Mohan, has also been booked in the case. Then, when the contractors approached Matprop, they were directed to Joshi and Kadam, who rented the equipment at inflated rates, said the police....