The three lucky candidates are Pravin Arjun Pawar (son of Tribal Development Minister Arjun Tulshiram Pawar), Pawan Madhusudan Dive (nephew of Nashik Mayor Ashok Dive) and Sunil Raut (son-in-law of Chief Accountant Deoram Gawale).

The NMC had advertised the posts in the local newspapers on April 7, 1998, for 35 posts of junior engineers (civil) and three posts of junior engineers (mechanical). A written examination was conducted on July 5 last year and candidates were interviewed on December 16. A merit list of 82 candidates for the Civil Wing and 28 for the Mechanical Wing was drawn up and submitted before the civic General Body on December 19.

For the Mechanical Wing, three persons from the merit list were finalised. Bajirao Mali (1st in the list, general category), Shailendra Jadhav (4th on the list, SCcategory) and Sandesh Thakur (7th on the list, ST category). This left no room to accommodate relatives of the mayor and the minister. Hence an amendment to the original resolution was moved on December 31 by former mayor Vasant Gite, supported by 70 of 87 corporators. The motion appended 52 other names to the original list, citing the need for more engineers to complete ongoing civic projects.

A Congress corporator had filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court on December 31, 1998 which ordered the status quo on the appointments. On January 18, 1999, the NMC's lawyer assured the court that Pawan Dive and Sunil Raut would not be appointed illegally and that procedures and merit would be taken into consideration. The writ was then withdrawn.

However, Dive's nephew Pawan (22nd on the merit list) has found a place in the list cleared by the NMC. He has surpassed three candidates in the SC category, Dilip Jagtap (9th on the list), Vijay Solse (10th) and Vijay Donde (13th). Sunil Raut, on the other hand,figured on the final list despite being ranked 15th, surpassing three candidates (ranked 2nd, 5th and 14th in the OBC/General Category).

The minister's son, Pravin Kumar was lucky as a BJP corporator Sanjay Chavan had moved a resolution on August 11, 1998, urging the NMC to make ad hoc appointments of engineers for a six months on consolidated salaries to speed up civic works. Taking note of the suggestion, the General Body selected Pravin Kumar as an assistant junior engineer (mechanical) along with some others.

The NMC has a precedent of disregarding the rule book. During the tenure of mayor Panditrao Khaire (Congress) 1994-95, each of the then 85 corporators fielded two names for recruitment of sweepers. The NMC had then appointed 170 persons, simply due to the proximity of the candidates to the city fathers.