MUMBAI, Oct. 2 -- When 19-year-old Ayman Shaikh began filing Right to Information (RTI) applications as part of her college interest in public administration, she hardly expected her findings to reach the Bombay High Court. But the Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) student from Ghatkopar claims her inquiries revealed inflated bills, ghost trucks and misuse of nearly Rs.90 lakh in a Mulund road project sanctioned in 2018. On Tuesday, acting on her petition, a division bench of justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Sandesh Patil directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to constitute a two-member committee of an additional commissioner and the civic chief engineer to examine the allegations. "Specific and serious allegations have been made. Youngsters are taking interest in such matters, we must encourage them," the bench observed while ordering the probe. Ayman told the court that her college campaigns on citizen rights and the RTI Act prompted her to investigate public contracts. In 2021, she filed an RTI on the Mulund road project and, after multiple appeals, received documents that, she claims, exposed glaring irregularities. Project challans showed value added tax had been levied, even though VAT had been scrapped and replaced by Goods and Services Tax in 2017. Five trucks listed as used in the project turned out to be registered as motorcycles, while three other vehicle numbers had no registration details at all. According to her, the assistant engineer approved these inflated bills, causing a misuse of public funds. "The planning section proposes the road and an estimation is drawn. Then tenders are floated to invite bids, the lowest should ideally win the tender. But the person who will ensure that kickbacks are given to politicians and local body employees gets the contract. The going rate is at least 15-16% of the project cost. What is the contractor supposed to earn?" she said. Ayman Shaikh's interest in civic accountability was deeply personal. "My father's friend passed away due to a pothole in the road. Afterwards when I was discussing his friend's untimely death with my father, I came to know the reality of how things actually work. Each step of a road construction is usually rigged, heavy bribes are paid to everyone involved. The roads in question before the high court are four to five stretches in Mulund including BR Road," Ayman said, explaining her motivation. Her father, Mehmood Shaikh, a footwear trader, said, "I have used RTIs before to find information on civic projects. But I barely know any English. Ayman volunteered to draft everything and argue in the court." Despite lodging a police complaint in 2023 and writing to the civic body, no action was taken, prompting her to approach the high court. She has now sought both a probe and criminal action against the officials responsible....