The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked three persons, including an advocate, for allegedly using forged papers to file petitions in the Allahabad High Court in a bid to grab about 57.55 hectares of land acquired by the government in Lucknow.
The agency has registered two cases, in which main accused Ashok Pathak, his associate Kapil Pratap Rana and advocate Vinayjit Lal Verma have been named.
The land located in Lucknow’s Sarojini Nagar was transferred to Gram Samaj in November 2002 and taken over by the government vide a District Magistrate’s order on May 10, 2016. The next month, a writ petition was filed against it in the High Court’s Lucknow Bench purportedly by one Khursheed Agha.
However, Mr. Agha denied having filed the petition. Accordingly, in June 2019, the court directed the CBI to identify the person involved. In September last year, the agency was told to probe a contempt petition filed in Mr. Agha’s name.
The CBI found that the writ petition was allegedly prepared by Mr. Verma at Mr. Pathak’s instance and a forged voter card was used for filing it. Mr. Agha’s name was used, as an earlier petition moved by the accused was rejected with the court observing that the original claimant (Mr. Agha) had better rights on the land.
The CBI found that an “assignment deed” for the land shown to have been executed in 1997 — between Mr. Agha (as a manager of Waqf property) and Mr. Rana (as secretary of one Aadhunik Sahkari Grih Nirman Samiti) — was also forged. The latter never held such a post, as alleged.
In December 2015, for a part of the land, a sale deed was signed between Mr. Rana and a company, in which Mr. Pathak was a director. The proceeds were allegedly diverted to him, his family members and a friend.
A contempt petition was then filed in Mr. Agha’s name, through the advocate, as some temporary work done on the land was demolished by the authorities.
The company, through Mr. Pathak, engaged a firm for selling a portion of the land. About ₹11 crore of booking amount was collected for 270 plots. While ₹1.81 crore was paid in commission, the rest was diverted via a company’s account opened allegedly at Mr. Pathak’s instance. The other directors were not in the know.
When the land was not developed, suspecting something amiss, the firm stopped receiving payments from customers and also refunded about ₹3.50 crore.
It is also alleged that cheques for ₹20 crore issued by Mr. Pathak to the company’s other directors, as part of a settlement deed signed after the whole matter came to light, had bounced.
