BENGALURU: The alleged sale of a piece of land that was provisionally attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2018 has led to KR Puram police booking two accused in a money laundering case, two sub-registrars, and two buyers of the property.
Initially, Wilson Garden police had registered a case against six people based on a complaint by Ritesh Kumar, assistant director, ED, on June 10. The case was transferred to KR Puram police on July 5.
According to Ritesh Kumar, the ED had taken up a money laundering case against John Michael and his wife Manjula Michael in 2011. The directorate had attached the couple’s property situated in Varanasi aka Jinkethimmanahalli village near KR Puram on October 12, 2018. The property was not supposed to be sold, transferred, altered or transacted in.
The accused allegedly created a forged document to show that the attachment order was cancelled by a court and submitted it to the KR Puram sub-registrar office. With the help of the office staff, John and Manjula sold the attached property to Lakshmi Umapati and Basanti. The sale deed was registered on July 10, 2020, for Rs 55,41,630.
Police have named John, Manjula, Lakshmi, Basanti, senior sub-registrar Krishna S Naik, and additional sub-registrar CV Sumana as the suspects in the FIR. “We will summon them for interrogation soon,” said an officer.
According to sources, two individuals — N Sreedharan and Tapan Bhandari — were cheated by the Michael couple. The couple allegedly received Rs 1,45,21,740 from Sreedharan and Bhandari by assuring them that they would get them BDA sites allotted from the chief minister’s discretionary quota and misappropriated the same. The couple purchased land and a car using this money.
Ramamurthynagar police registered a cheating case against the couple based on a complaint filed by Sreedharan in 2010. Probe revealed money laundering and the ED took up a separate case against them in 2011.
Anticipatory bail pleas of officials dismissed
Sumana and Naik approached the 55th additional city civil & session judge seeking anticipatory bail soon after the case was registered against them. However, the petitions were rejected on June 30. Sumana had contended that she was not in charge of the office on February 3, 2020, when there was an entry about the cancellation of court order. Naik claimed he was not sub-registrar on July 10, 2020, when the registration of sale deed happened.
The prosecution told police Naik was the sub-registrar at the time of making an entry of the forged cancellation of the attachment order in official records and Sumana was the sub-registrar at the time of sale deed.
“By violating the court attachment order, the sale deed has been registered. The complainant is an assistant director of the ED. They cannot shift the responsibility to the case worker or computer operator. The petitioners have not made out any grounds for an order of anticipatory bail,” judge Shriram Narayan Hegde opined.
