MUMBAI, Oct. 1 -- The sessions court has refused anticipatory bail to retired Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) executive engineer Ganesh Chandrakant Bendre, who has been accused of playing a key role in the alleged Rs.65-crore Mithi River desilting fraud. In his plea, Bendre, who retired from the Storm Water Management (SWM) department of BMC, argued that he had no authority to make decisions, was not a beneficiary of any funds, and had cooperated fully with investigators. His counsel stressed that "no incriminating material" was seized from his home during searches and that custodial interrogation was unnecessary. Additional sessions judge NG Shukla on Monday found sufficient prima facie material indicating Bendre's complicity in the alleged fraud. The court noted that he was a "signatory of three note-sheets put up by the SWM department", which proposed the compulsory use of silt pushing pontoon machines and multipurpose amphibious pontoon machines at higher rates, despite objections from senior officials. The case arises from alleged irregularities in BMC's desilting contracts for the Mithi River. According to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), the conspiracy spanned between 2013 and 2021, during which multiple BMC officials, including Bendre, who served as the civic body's executive engineer between 2019 and 2023, allegedly colluded with Matprop Services executives and contractors to tailor tender conditions in a manner that caused wrongful loss to the civic body. The court said that "the material shows that the applicant was working on the key post in respect of Mithi desilting project" and had issued work orders, verified contractors' memoranda of understanding, and signed payment certificates. The court further recorded that the retired executive engineer, along with other civic officials, had visited Delhi and Kerala in September 2020 to view demonstrations of the machinery, with travel and hotel expenses allegedly borne by co-accused contractor Ketan Kadam. "If all these events are considered together, it prima facie shows that there was a conspiracy amongst Ketan Kadam and the officials of BMC, including the applicant, to prepare and insert terms and conditions in the proposed tenders in a manner compelling the contractors to use both the machines," the order stated. While acknowledging that Bendre may not have directly profited from the scheme, the judge stressed that he remained "one of the conspirators of this conspiracy," which caused a wrongful loss of about Rs.65.54 crore to the civic body. Rejecting the defence argument that cooperation with the investigation warranted protection, the court ruled, "Mere aspect of not requiring custodial interrogation is not helpful to the applicant to grant anticipatory bail. Considering the nature and gravity of the offence and role of the applicant in the present crime, the applicant is not entitled to anticipatory bail."...