A heated argument had taken place between AMC Subodh Kumar and corporators in the standing committee meeting two days ago following charges of corruption levelled against the administration. The issue was raised by Congress leader A K Bastiwala, who told the committee that chief assessor and collector P B Janwalkar had refused to furnish details of octroi refund to four companies to committee chairperson Sada Sarvankar.

From here, the members took to levelling charges of corruption with one of them demanding that Janwalkar be suspended and an enquiry be instituted against him. Shiv Sena's Balkrishna Rane told the committee that according to information available to him, many files were burnt by the administration to erase records of these refundsto bogus companies that never existed.

After the meeting today, the mayor said he had asked municipal commissioner K Nalinakshan to prepare a proposal to change BMC rules so that corporators could have access to information on any issue whenever they wanted. As of now, under the BMC Act, members can ask for information related to BMC only during the various meetings and the departments are bound to reply. In this case, which was brought up during the committee meeting, Sarvankar had asked for information individually from Janwalkar and it was refused.

Patil said he had told Subodh Kumar it would be difficult to function by sticking to the rule book, hence he should take into consideration the conventions followed in BMC. ``These AMCs are new and not aware of parampara (tradition),'' said Patil, adding they should take note of conventions followed in BMC for years together. However, he seemed satisfied to have set the issue right. Nalinakshan apparently assured the corporators they could approachhim if his staff did not provide information.