Mumbai, Nov 11 (UNI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday issued fresh summons to former Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar in connection with the Covid-19 body bag scam, a central agency official confirmed. .
Pednekar hadn’t appeared before the agency when he was earlier summoned Wednesday. After she requested a four-week extension to gather documents, the agency reissued the same summons for November 23.
According to sources, Pednekar was allegedly involved in inflating the cost of body bags in the BMC’s procurement process as per a FIR registered by Economic Offences Wing’s (EOW) in this connection.
The investigation by the EOW allegedly revealed that two vendors were finalised after the bidding process in April, 2020. The first company, Care Solution, was ready to supply body bags after negotiations at a rate of Rs 2,583 per unit. Pednekar, in her position as mayor, allegedly called Haridas Rathod, who was in charge of the Central Purchase Department, at her bungalow and told him to award the contract to Vedanta Innotech.
