Three special courts for the Central Bureau of Investigations will be set up in the city to clear the backlog of cases in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Narayan Rane said today. Each court will have three judges as well as 15 posts in various categories. At present, there are 302 cases pending in the CBI court in the state.

ACB arrests suspended civic engineer

The Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested suspended Deputy Municipal Executive Engineer (Encroachments) of the Thane Municipal Corporation, Vishwas Bashe, and his wife Smita on Tuesday on charges of possessing property disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Bashe was suspended in 1997 following allegations by a Congress corporator that he had demanded money to save the latter's building from demolition. Raids by the ACB revealed that Bashe owned property worth Rs 26.88 lakh including several flats, shops and a readymade garments unit.

Anganwadis' food contract cancelled

The ThaneZilla Parishad today announced the cancellation of a contract given to Mahila Aarthik Vikas Mahamandal to supply food to children in the district's anganwadis and balwadis. Gross mismanagement in the supply of food to the tune of Rs 15 lakh has been discovered. The ZP is also demanding that the MAVIM be blacklisted.

600 stalls razed at Chembur

Amid tight bandobast, the BMC today demolished 600 illegal stalls at Chembur. Around 100 police supervised the demolition on N C Acharya Marg below Tembe bridge, D K Sandu Marg and Acharya Garden. Seeing the big convoy of municipal vans this morning, most stall-owners began emptying their belongings and other materials, civic officials said (ENS).