Broker held for land deal with fake papers

Pune: A real estate agent was arrested on Tuesday night for allegedly forging documents to sell off an acre of land belonging to the wife of a retired customs officer.

A magisterial court on Wednesday sent the real estate agent, Pradeep Gulabrao Deotale (33), in police remand till July 16. Deotale from Dhanoriis the fourth person arrested in the case.

Police had earlier arrested real estate agent Ajit Kataria, also from Dhanori, and impersonators Karamjeet Labsingh Kaur and her son Gurmeet from Jabalpur.

Senior inspector Khanderao Khaire, the Market Yard police station incharge, on Wednesday said Karamjeet Kaur Harnik Singh, the wife of a retired assistant commissioner of customs department residing in Navi Mumbai at present, had purchased the one acre land for Rs 40,000 in 1980s. But her registration documents were lying in the office of the sub-registrar concerned since then.

Khaire said real estate agent Kataria had obtained documents of Kaur's property from the sub-registrar's office, gave its photocopy to Deotale and allegedly conspired with him for selling the land to a prospective buyer.

He said Deotale brought an impersonator from Jabalpur, whose name was alsoKaramjeet Kaur, and her son and allegedly sold the land for Rs 1.6 crore to businessman Shrenik Khabia from Ahmednagar in 2013.

The fraud came to light after the original land owner obtained 7/12 extract in 2015 and found the land was sold to Khabia. She subsequently registered a complaint of cheating and forgery with police on May 30, 2015.

Joint commissioner of police Sunil Ramanand said investigations revealed that Khabia had paid money by cheque to the impersonator, Kaur, who in turn had transferred Rs 40 lakh in the bank account of Deotale.

Ramanand told TOI Deotale was arrested in New Delhi following a tip-off and brought to Pune for investigations. Since businessman Khabia is in possession of the property now, the original land owner would have to move the revenue department for cancelling the sale deed to claim its possession.

The incident is tip of an iceberg because a racket of middlemen involved in producing impersonators for original land owners whose property documents were lying in sub-registrars' office was active in Pune, he added.

Credit : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/