PANAJI
The former mayor and one of the senior-most councillors, Surendra Furtado has demanded that the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) should strike down the proposal forwarded by the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) to appoint Kabir Makhija and Kishore Sastry as a co-opted councillors.
Furtado said that Kishor Sastry and Kabir Makhija are not qualified to be co-opted councillors and as per the CCP Act only planners, architects, doctors, members of NGO have to be co-opted councillors.
“The act says that only qualified persons should be appointed as co-opted members. If someone goes to court, the appointments of Sastry and Makhija will be struck down. Before the court strikes it down, the DMA should immediately withdraw the order of appointment,” said Furtado.
Furtado said that the Mayor should first study the matter before putting any proposal. Instead of looking after the city, the Mayor is looking after such things,” he added.
He said that these political appointments will not help Panaji.
It can be recalled that the CCP while proposing to nominate former councillors Kabir Pinto Makhija and Kishore Sastry as co-opted councillors had falsely stated that they were experts in the field of engineering and urban administration respectively.
This has been revealed in the information obtained by social activist Adv Aires Rodrigues from the CCP under the RTI Act.
However, bio-data submitted by Kabir Makhija and Kishore Sastry which is on file and copies of which have been furnished to Adv Rodrigues does not make any mention of having any expertise in engineering and municipal administration.
