Bhavesh Bhinde, the head of Ego Media Pvt. Ltd. and aspiring MLA, who was finally arrested from Udaipur on Thursday in the billboard tragedy at Ghatkopar, had been allegedly greasing the palms of senior railway officials to allow him run his advertising business without paying the mandatory licence fee for years, alleged Ajay Bose, a former parcel supervisor who was posted at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT). 

Out of curiosity, Bose filed an application in 2019 under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to know the outstanding licence fees of advertising contractors. “Based on the comprehensive response from the senior divisional commercial manager’s office, I discovered that significant outstanding licence fees are pending. Above all, crucial files related to the outstanding licence fees of advertising contractors, who in the past secured contracts of advertisement rights across the Mumbai division of Central Railway (CR), are missing. Bhinde’s files are also not traceable as per the RTI reply,” Bose told mid-day.