Mumbai: Samajwadi Party MLA from Bhiwandi East Raees Sheikh has demanded a reduction in the fee charged for testing and entry of sacrificial animals on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha.

In a letter to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Dada Pawar, Raees Sheikh said that a delegation from the Quraish Human Welfare Association met us recently and gave us a letter requesting a reduction in the fee charged for testing and entry of sacrificial animals. He said in his letter that in a public interest litigation filed on April 8, 2025, as per the order passed by Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice MS Karnik of the Bombay High Court, the petitioner has been allowed to file his petition before the Secretary, Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Department.

The association says that till 2022, a fee of Rs 20 was collected for the examination and entry of animals into the slaughterhouse at Deonar Slaughterhouse, but from 2022, the fee has been increased by 100% to Rs 200, which has put a considerable financial burden on small traders and farmers. In 2023 and 2024, a temporary fee of Rs 20 was charged on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha, which shows that work can be done by charging a fee of Rs 20. Therefore, considering the above and the court order, the association demands that the Secretary of the Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Department permanently fix the fee collected for the examination and entry of sacrificial animals at Rs 20. Raees Sheikh told Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Dada Pawar that Muslims across the country, including Maharashtra, celebrate the festival of Eid-ul-Adha with great devotion and respect, so the government should take steps to provide maximum facilities so that Muslims can celebrate the festival of Eid-ul-Adha in a better way.

Mumbai: Civic activists have demanded that the chief minister appoint a special task force for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to immediately address the civic infrastructure collapse in Mumbai. The activists have alleged that the task force is necessary to bring an end to the systematic corruption prevailing in the civic body.

Members of the Watchdog Foundation have written to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis urging him to appoint a special task force to bring an end to the systematic corruption in the BMC. They have alleged that the corruption prevailing in the civic body is the reason for the infrastructural collapse in Mumbai.

The letter written on Tuesday alleged that the municipal commissioner and his team have consistently failed to provide basic civic amenities across multiple fronts. It alleged that the ongoing road concretisation works are being carried out in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner. Numerous roads have been dug up and left incomplete, causing severe air pollution, traffic congestion, and posing a grave risk to pedestrians, the letter alleged.

The activists raised concerns regarding multiple road work contracts being awarded to a few contractors. They also alleged that BMC has failed to mandate the creation of underground ducts for utilities, which leads to repeated road digging. It also pressed on the issues of encroachments of roads and footpaths, illegal parking, and repeated repairs of footpaths, resulting in waste of taxpayers’ money.

“It may be recalled that in the year 2001, the Maharashtra Government had taken the unprecedented decision to dissolve BMC following the recommendations of an expert committee constituted to probe into the widespread corruption prevalent in the civic body. Unfortunately, despite the passage of over two decades, the situation within the BMC has only deteriorated further,” read the letter.

The letter also alleged a scam in the desilting of riverbeds and nullahs, including the Mithi river, and expressed disappointment, saying that the situation remains pathetic even after hundreds of crores being allocated annually for the projects. The letter also added concerns like the proliferation of slums, rampant tree cutting, and harassment of law-abiding citizens.

“The citizens of Mumbai are losing faith in the system, and urgent corrective action is the need of the hour. We urge you to institute a high-level inquiry into the functioning of BMC and transfer all senior officials, if necessary, to cleanse it of its deeply entrenched corruption. Implement systemic reforms to ensure transparency, accountability, and efficient civic governance in Mumbai,” said Godfrey Pimenta, trustee of Watchdog Foundation.

Kolkata, April 29: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Tuesday, informed a special court in Kolkata that one of the prime accused in the West Bengal school job case, Sujay Krishna Bhadra, received Rs 75 crore from one particular middleman, Arun Hazra.

The money received by Bhadra, according to the CBI counsel, was collected by Hazra from “tainted” candidates who paid to secure school jobs.

Hazra, who is named as an accused in the charge sheet, appeared at the special court in the afternoon. The judge enquired about the actual charges against him.

Thereafter, the CBI counsel briefed the court on the amount of money that Hazra collected as a middleman from “tainted” candidates and handed over the money, amounting to Rs 75 crore, to Bhadra.

The CBI counsel also presented a summary of Hazra’s modus operandi to the court.

As per the CBI, Hazra, as a middleman, used to operate a chain of sub-agents. Their main task was to identify candidates willing to pay money for school jobs and, accordingly, collect the money from these candidates. Hazra collected amounts for the recruitment in all categories of teaching staff, namely primary, secondary, and higher secondary.

While the recruitment for primary teachers is done by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE), the same is done for secondary and higher secondary teachers by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

Last month, CBI collected the handwriting specimens of Hazra to match them with the texts in some diaries, recovered by the investigating officials, which contain some details of the payments made by Hazra to Bhadra.

Similarly, handwriting specimens of six of Hazra’s sub-agents were also collected.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court’s division bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar had upheld an earlier order by a division bench of the Calcutta High Court cancelling 25,753 teaching (secondary and higher secondary) and non-teaching jobs in state-run schools.

The Supreme Court also accepted the observation of the Calcutta High Court that the entire panel had to be cancelled because of the failure of the state government and the commission to segregate the “genuine” candidates from the “tainted” ones.

Meanwhile, a detailed hearing in the case on irregularities in the recruitment of primary teachers in different state-run schools will resume at the Calcutta High Court’s new bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobrata Kumar Mitra from May 7. The fate of around 32,000 primary teachers is at stake in the case.